Temptation to the Dark
by Certain POV
Summary: A sequel to my previous fic, Taking the Blame. Following the events of that story, the Jedi must contend with the diabolical forces of the Lost Tribe of the Sith and Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala. But amidst the conflict between so many factions, one Jedi Skywalker will be tempted to the dark side like his grandfather before him. Please review.
1. Prologue

The stolen cargo transport raced erratically across the light-filled night sky of Coruscant, pursued closely by half a dozen Security Force cruisers. The lights and sirens of the pursuers' vehicles, though necessary for the chase to make sure that no one got in their way for their quarry, also worked in the favor of the pursued, as there were significantly fewer obstacles for the pilot to navigate around.

Still, that pilot, former Jedi Knight Tahiri Veila, would have preferred a much slower trip without anyone to chase her or her compatriots.

With her aboard the vessel were about five other people, four of whom were conscious to feel fear during the pursuit. The one who had no idea of his current predicament was also the person who was encased in carbonite and the reason that Tahiri and her compatriots were being chased by the police: Jedi Knight Valin Horn, recently sprung from the Armand Isard Correctional Facility.

"Any idea on how to lose 'em, Tahiri?" Jedi Knight Seff Hellin asked from the copilot seat.

"I was hoping you'd have an idea, Seff," Tahiri replied without taking her eyes away from the skylane ahead. She promptly swerved off to the right to avoid crashing into a building before she asked, "Why don't you try using the Force to knock them out of the sky?"

"I'm not that powerful anymore," Seff answered, his hands grasping on his seat's arms. "Nor would I do it to intentionally harm or kill innocent police officers even if I was still that powerful."

Since Abeloth's death not too long ago, Seff had been reduced to his normal level of ability in the Force just as he also lost the perception that everyone around him was an impostor. As a result, Tahiri was able to recruit him and the other three Jedi with them—Natua Wan, Avinoam Arelis, and Valin Horn's sister Jysella—into her plan to bust Valin out of his confinement.

The recruitment process itself wasn't that difficult; considering the fact that everyone here had the Force, Tahiri was able to use it to call upon all of the Jedi who were hiding from the forces commanded by Galactic Alliance Chief of State Daala. Within a matter of days, Tahiri was able to get all of the Jedi who had remained hidden and safe from the GA military and Daala's Mandalorian death squads to a secret hideout. From there came the plan to rescue Valin.

Now that the carbonite-encased Jedi was within their illegal custody, Tahiri and the other Jedi were on their way back to the secret Jedi hideout. The only thing that could get in their way now was, obviously, the police cruisers on their tail.

Even in the midst of her frantic piloting, Tahiri was still able to think of a brief prayer to the Force itself to not get any Mandalorian mercenaries involved.

And as if the Force actively rejected that prayer, a trio of Mandos flying on jetpacks came into view several dozen meters ahead. Each of them fired a rocket toward the Jedi-piloted ship.

Tahiri quickly banked to the left and rocketed the ship deeper into Coruscant's bowels; however, the proximity alarm rang from her sensors, indicating that each rocket was now following the Jedi vessel.

"Smart missiles!" Seff cried out for the benefit of the Jedi in the passenger compartment. "Hang on, everyone!"

Tahiri poured more speed even as the rockets, the police cruisers, and the jetpacked Mandos raced down after them.

"Seff, can you at least use the Force to divert even one of those rockets?" Tahiri asked.

He nodded, even though he knew that she couldn't see him. "That shouldn't be too hard," he said.

Seff closed his eyes and raised a hand. On the threat proximity screen, Tahiri caught, via her peripheral vision, that the leftmost smart missile was wavering very slightly in its course. However, it wasn't getting anywhere near the missile right next to it.

Tahiri actually considered helping Seff when a swarm of mynocks suddenly sprang out from the Vongformed darkness below. Quickly, Tahiri sent the ship up into a steep climb, with the belly barely making contact with any of the mynocks.

Seconds later, before Tahiri leveled out from the climb, an explosion rocked the ship from the outside. Thankfully, it didn't last long, and Tahiri was able to set the vessel back on a straightforward path and even take a glance at the sensors.

All three smart missiles were gone; apparently, at least one of them must have detonated upon one of the mynocks and not only annihilated that swarm, but inadvertently destroyed its two partners.

However, the jetpacked Mandos and the police cruisers were still on their tail.

"All right, I have an idea," Tahiri said. "Seff, go cut a hole back in the passenger compartment's floor, one big enough to fit Valin through."

Seff looked at her in askance. "You can't be thinking what I think you're thinking," he said with a slight panicked tone.

"Oh, yes, I am," Tahiri said.

Seff only offered a brief sigh in protest, but still unstrapped himself from his seat and headed back.

Moments later, after evading laserfire from the Mandos, Seff called back, "It's done!"

With that pronouncement, Tahiri unstrapped herself from her seat, set the ship to autopilot, and followed Seff back into the passenger compartment.

She had barely caught Seff jumping down through the hole that she told him to cut before she, too, plunged out of the vessel. Behind her, as she soared down through the air with the other Jedi, the ship plowed into an abandoned building with a satisfying explosion.

Above her, the Mandos and the police cruisers continued to follow her and the other Jedi down to Vongformed Coruscant.

That was just fine by Tahiri.

As she and the other Jedi touched down on the moss-covered ground with Force-cushioning landings, the Mandos and the police cruisers set down even more gently and surrounded the Jedi.

"Don't move, Jedi," the Mando in the center of his trio of thugs commanded. He and his cohorts had their blasters trained upon their quarry. "Hands above your head!"

"What, you mercs speak for the police now?" Tahiri spat as she nevertheless complied.

"We speak for ourselves, Veila!" Captain Oric Harfard called out. He and the other police officers had just come out of their vehicles and aimed their blasters at the Jedi in defensive postures. "Now get on your knees, all of you!"

Before any of the Jedi could attempt to obey that command, a series of shrill shrieks echoed throughout the Vongformed landscape around them. Soon, large shadows started to form where the scant light from above could shine at all; naturally, the Mandos and cops turned their attention from the Jedi to whoever the new arrivals were.

Moments later, large bands of feral beings of various species began to pour out of buildings, alleyways, and even open manholes and raced toward the congregation that came from above.

Immediately, the mercs and officers began to fire upon the incoming swarm just as the six active Jedi all ignited their lightsabers. They all leaped out from the circle that their pursuers had formed around them, with Jysella and Avinoam being the ones to physically carry Valin's encased form even as they soared through the air, and they all landed in the midst of the Ferals.

But while the Jedi did find themselves having to chop down the lunatics around them, the Ferals mostly focused their efforts on trying to overpower the Mandos and cops that Tahiri and her compatriots just escaped from.

It didn't take long after that before the Jedi found themselves an open alleyway, free of any Ferals, to deactivate their lightsabers, hook them back to their belts, and catch their breaths.

But once they had all collected themselves, it was Seff who looked at Tahiri in anger. Before she could hope to defend herself, Seff backed her up against the wall behind her and pinned her there by her shoulders.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Seff growled. "You could have gotten us all killed back there!"

"Keep your voice down, you idiot," Tahiri snarled as she tried to push back from him. "You might attract one of those things!"

"And you knew the risk to those cops!" Seff continued, having completely ignored Tahiri's warning. "They could be dead right now!"

"They were on our ass with those Mandos," Tahiri countered as she was quickly losing her patience. "You didn't exactly come up with any brilliant ideas yourself. What would you have had me do? Surrender and get ourselves killed by those Mandos? It's not like any of those cops would have been able to do anything about it even if they tried. Now get your damn hands off me."

Seff looked offended, but not by her threat. "You never cared about those cops, did you, Veila? You don't care if you just killed them by leading them to those things!"

At that, Tahiri grit her teeth and used the Force to enhance her own strength to push back against Seff. A second later, he was the one with his back pinned up against the wall behind him.

"Don't think that I don't care, Hellin," Tahiri growled. "I wouldn't have gone on this mission if I didn't care about Valin. But if we didn't lose those cops, we wouldn't have gotten away. So if that means that I just signed their death warrants, I'll live with that on my conscience and let the Force or Master Skywalker or whoever judge my actions."

"Look, can we save this argument for later?" Jysella was the one to speak up. "We're close to the hideout. Let's just go before any of those Ferals come after us."

After a bit of hesitation, Tahiri let Seff go. He looked back at her warily as he straightened himself out.

No one said another word before they reached their hideout: an abandoned warehouse that hadn't been used for hundreds of years.

Inside were all five dozen Jedi who had survived Daala's Mandalorian purge on the Temple some time ago. They had congregated here and were now waiting in the central area of the ground floor; they looked expectantly at Tahiri and her band of Jedi, who came back with their carbonite-encased fellow.

"All right, let's go," Tahiri said to Bazel "Barv" Warv.

He nodded, bent down to the floor, and lifted up a massive piece of conspicuously clean tiling. A ladder was revealed leading into the sewer system below, and Tahiri was the first one to climb down.

One by one, the other Jedi followed suit and allowed Tahiri to lead the way. Barv was right beside her. Soon, the encased Valin was among the growing gathering in the sewers, tended to by the other Jedi who helped save him.

Less than two hours later, the Jedi mass reached another ladder. Tahiri was the first to climb up, and when she reached the top, she used the Force to lift up the section of false floor above her. She set it aside on the actual floor upon which she emerged and was greeted by Imperial Remnant Head of State Jagged Fel in his refresher.

"You got him?" Jag asked.

Tahiri nodded wordlessly.

"Then let's start getting you all off this planet," Jag said.


	2. Chapter 1

**Three Months Later**

Although the new Fountain Palace was still being built, various sections of the Queen Mother's home were already completed. Among them was Her Majesty's bedchamber, which had been outfitted with soundproof walls so that the Queen Mother wouldn't be disturbed by the sounds of construction going on outside. Of course, if there was an emergency situation in Allana Djo's quarters, the security guards who were stationed by the entrance leading into the royal bedchamber wore earpieces that would be activated if their Queen Mother pressed the red panic button by the head of her bed.

Right next to that button, however, was the yellow entry knob, which notified the guards that they need not rush in; Her Majesty would simply need to be escorted out for some fresh air. As Queen Mother, Allana understood that her safety was, naturally, a vital part of her rule; but considering the fact that she was still very much a child, she did need the occasional bouts of play to cut through her studies, duties, and boredom.

And right now, Allana really felt the need to go out into the royal garden (which was still being refurbished) so that she wouldn't have to be trapped here talking to another stuffy Ducha through her bedchamber's hypercomm.

"I understand your concerns, Ducha Lorangal," Allana said as patiently as she could. She was losing that patience because she found herself saying that more and more to these Duchas lately, and she was starting to get sick of it. "But you must understand the difficulty of producing more Battle Dragons after the losses we took several months ago. Rest assured, they are being completed ahead of schedule, and in a matter of weeks, you will have a full complement orbiting Andalia. You will be safe, Ducha."

"Pardon me if I don't share in your optimism, my Queen Mother," Lorangal responded. Her voice dripped with thinly veiled rage. "But it would only take a few days for pirates to raid my planet and rob me of everything I so cherish here on Andalia."

"Would you consider evacuating then, Ducha?" Allana asked. She could barely keep herself from rolling her eyes in annoyance; she could practically recite what Lorangal was about to say in response, and she wouldn't have needed precognition to do it.

"Absolutely not! Andalia is my home! I would not let it fall into chaos and barbarism by allowing my authority to leave with me!"

"Then if you're so confident that your authority can maintain order over at Andalia," Allana said, "you can be confident that it would drive such pirates away before those Battle Dragons arrive."

Lorangal looked like she was about to burst a blood vessel over Allana's sarcasm. But that look was over as soon as it had started; then the Ducha regained her composure.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Lorangal said in a kowtowed tone. "I will not bother you any further on this matter."

"See to it that you don't," Allana replied dryly. She cut the transmission before Lorangal had an opportunity to say anything else; the Queen Mother then allowed herself a satisfied smile at the Ducha's mild humiliation.

It was no secret that Lorangal hated Jedi with a passion, and although she stayed silent on the issue of being ruled over by Force-sensitive women like Tenenial Djo, her daughter Tenel Ka, and now Allana, it was obvious that she detested that fact. It was a wonder to Allana why Lorangal didn't join that failed coup against Tenel Ka that was headed by all those treacherous Duchas during the Second Galactic Civil War.

Of course, Lorangal wasn't alone in Hapan anti-Jedi sentiment, Allana knew. Other Duchas may have hidden it better in their holocomm transmissions to Allana, but it was still quite obvious that they weren't too happy about being ruled over by yet another Force-sensitive Queen Mother. However, as long as they stayed in line, and they had their reasons to do so (even if Allana didn't know exactly what those reasons were), she couldn't care less about their hatred of her; especially since she hadn't received any assassination attempts since she took the throne.

But she knew why that was the case; the Hapes Consortium, like the Fountain Palace, still needed recovery after the Infestation of Abeloth months ago... the very same Infestation that killed Allana's mother and forced her to take on the mantle of Queen Mother. What stopped Allana from once again crying over Tenel Ka was the amusement she got that none of the Duchas dare make an assassination attempt on her while the Consortium was still picking up its pieces.

After all, if any of those Duchas wanted to take over and become the latest Queen Mother, she would want to make sure that her Consortium was back to peak efficiency first; so why not let your predecessor take care of the dirty work?

Allana was brought out of her musings by a buzzing from her bedchamber's intercom. After crossing her room to the door that would lead outside, she answered it. "Yes?" she asked.

"It's Danni Quee Solo, Your Majesty," the guard's voice came from the intercom. "Would you like her to come in or would you prefer that you meet her out here?"

Allana hesitated in her response. She liked Danni, she really did, and she appreciated that the woman agreed to help Jacen—the template for Allana's real father, the man who became known as Darth Caedus—raise her as she helped the Consortium pull itself back together. And Allana was glad for the time they spent together so far these past months; they had gotten to know each other as Danni helped Allana with her studies, namely when it came to the basic sciences and algebra. Allana especially enjoyed learning about different types of plant life and hearing stories about what kind of flora and fauna could be expected on the far away living world of Zonama Sekot.

But there were times, such as now, when Allana simply didn't want to see Danni. Not for any particular reason; she just didn't want to see Danni sometimes.

"Tell her that I'm too busy today," Allana finally responded. "I have more Duchas that I need to make calls to."

"Very well, Your Majesty," the guard replied before signing off.

Allana sighed with an odd mixture of both relief and frustration; while she didn't want to see Danni today, she also wanted to. And all throughout, Allana couldn't stop thinking about Tenel Ka.

. . .

In another completed section of the Fountain Palace, the sparring dojo, Ben Skywalker swung his lightsaber in seemingly random and erratic directions at imaginary foes. Yet, at the same time, an order could be found among even mid-tier lightsaber duelists who might also have the capacity to determine young Ben's own mental state.

Jacen Solo, who was a much more advanced duelist, saw what Ben was thinking after only watching for a few minutes from the dojo's entryway.

Unhooking his own lightsaber from his belt, Jacen sprang forward before he even activated his weapon.

Less than a second later, Jacen, upon reaching his cousin, managed to parry Ben's lightsaber out of his hands before pointing the tip of his blade near the younger man's throat.

Yet Jacen saw no fear or even surprise from Ben, even if he could sense both those things in his cousin's Force-presence. Instead, Jacen saw anger and even hatred in Ben's expression and, especially, his eyes.

"Ataru and Djem So. Very aggressive fighting styles you were utilizing there," Jacen said as he brought his blade away from Ben's neck. "Of course, that kind of aggression can make you sloppy if you utilize both or either of those forms for a prolonged period of time."

"Sloppy?" Ben asked in disbelief. "What do you mean sloppy?"

"For one thing, you didn't sense me when I sprang at you. You should have brought your guard up."

Ben was silent for a long moment. "I sensed you."

"Oh, really? Then why was it so easy for me to parry your lightsaber away from your hand like that?"

Instead of answering, Ben used the Force to recall his lightsaber to his hand and reactivated it. He then assumed a defensive stance.

Jacen didn't look impressed. "Well? Are you gonna answer my question?"

Ben then lunged; Jacen parried away easily. Ben struck again, yet Jacen held his ground. Ben's attacks then grew in rapidity, but Jacen's defenses didn't allow him to step a foot away from his current position.

A few minutes later, Ben's lightsaber flew away from his hands again. And once again, the tip of his cousin's lightsaber was poised close to his throat.

"Please don't lie to me, Ben," Jacen said as he deactivated his lightsaber and hooked it back to his belt. "You didn't sense me because you were caught up in the aggression of those techniques. Not only do you need to vary them to more defensive styles, but you always, _always_, need to keep your senses open, so that you won't get caught with your pants down."

Ben recalled his lightsaber back to his hand. However, when the weapon was halfway back to his palm, Jacen broke his cousin's Force-hold on it with one of his own, and Ben's saber smacked into his hand instead.

Ben looked incredulous, but said nothing as Jacen continued with, "This is the third time in as many months as I've tried to teach you this lesson, Ben. The first time made sense; it was something you had to learn. The second time, I thought that would serve as an object lesson to never forget what can be learned. But this is the third time, Ben; now I've given you your space, but you have to show me that you're willing to learn."

Ben's lightsaber was ripped out of Jacen's grasp by his cousin's Force-pull. When Ben hooked the weapon back to his belt, he said, "I'm not an apprentice. I'm a Jedi Knight. I don't need any lessons." He looked like he was about to say something else, but looked away instead.

"Not from me anyway, huh?" Jacen said. "Was that what you were gonna say?"

When Ben looked back at his cousin, it was with utter spite. "Exactly."

Jacen allowed a tense moment to pass before he said, "You know I'm not-"

"Don't. Just. Don't," Ben said with a hand held up to forestall anything else his cousin might say.

He then walked past Jacen and headed to the dojo's exit.

"If you can't separate me from the man you believed to be me," Jacen called back after turning around, "you can let your hatred distract you from the truth."

At that, Ben stopped in his tracks. He then turned around and levelled an accusatory finger at Jacen.

"Listen," Ben said, "I didn't come here of my own volition. My dad ordered me to be here. He said I needed to help you and Allana rebuild the Hapes Consortium. And, quite frankly, so far, there hasn't been a whole lot for me to do around here."

"You know what this assignment really is, Ben," Jacen said.

"Don't tell me what this assignment really is," Ben said as he allowed his hand to drop back to his side. "I'm only doing what Master Skywalker told me to do. I don't have to do anything more than that."

Neither he nor Jacen said anything more to each other before Ben completely left the dojo. Only when Ben was gone did Jacen let out a long sigh, accompanied by his head hanging in disappointment.

Moments later, his wife of two months, Danni Quee Solo, entered the dojo, prompting him to look up to her.

"I saw Ben on my way over here," she said once she reached her husband. "I take it your latest surprise attack on him fared no better than the previous ones."

He shook his head. "I don't understand, Danni. He knows for a fact that I'm not Darth Caedus, that I never was him. Yet he acts like his dad made a stupid mistake in allowing the Sith Lord who killed his wife to rejoin the Jedi's ranks when nothing could be further from the truth."

Danni placed a hand on his shoulder. "You have to give him more time, Jacen. He's still young; he's letting his emotions overcome logic. It's typical for a teenager."

"Yeah, well, typical teenagers don't have to deal with everything he's had to go through," Jacen countered. "Losing his mom to a man he thought was his cousin, only to meet his real cousin years later? I don't blame him for levying his misplaced aggression against me, but still, he has to come to terms with reality; I had nothing to do with what happened to Aunt Mara."

"I know, I know," Danni said reassuringly. "You wanna help Ben accept you, so that you can be family as you were meant to be."

Jacen nodded. "Caedus created a great wound within my family, Danni. And while I'm glad that Mom, Dad, Jaina, Uncle Luke, and even Allana have all accepted me again, that wound that Caedus created can never be fully healed until Ben accepts me as family. But like you said, I have to give it time. I can't force it."

Danni was silent for a while before her hand dropped away from Jacen's shoulder. "It's not just that, though, is it?"

Jacen chuckled lightly. "I can't get anything past you, huh?"

Danni mirrored his mirth. "I'm your wife. I may still be new at it, but I can tell, there's always more with you."

The mirth died away moments later when Jacen nodded. "Yes, there is more. The anger I feel in Ben... it's... rotting him."


	3. Chapter 2

"It's been a while, Head of State Fel," Galactic Federation of Free Alliances Chief of State Natasi Daala addressed to the hypercomm representation of Jagged Fel. "I take it this isn't a social call." A hint of glibness was added to her formal tone.

"You know exactly why I'm calling, Daala," Fel replied curtly. "The Jedi don't pose any threat to you anymore. They've all but left GA space and are now protected by the Imperial Remnant and the Hapes Consortium. So stop sending out your Mandalorian death squads for them."

Daala raised an eyebrow. "While it is true that I did hire out Belok Rhal and his Mandalorian mercenaries to raid the Jedi Temple, I can assure you, Fel, that whatever encounters that the Jed are receiving in Imperial and Hapan territories are-"

"Occurring under circumstances not related to you or the Galactic Alliance government?" Fel interrupted. "Please don't insult my intelligence, Daala. While I may not have had as much experience in politics as you did when I took the job as the Remnant's Head of State, I know how the game's played. So I'm only calling to warn you to back off; is that understood?"

Daala was silent for a while before she finally spoke. "Are you implying, Head of State Fel, that you would be willing to go to war with the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances over the Jedi Order?"

"Are you?" Fel retorted.

Daala smirked. "What hard evidence do you have that these attacks are linked to me? Aside from the circumstantial evidence that I've hired out Mandalorians against the Jedi in the past? It's not as if the Order doesn't have any enemies in either the Remnant or the Consortium."

"True," Fel conceded reluctantly. "Mandos are mercs who'll go after anyone if the price is right, no matter who the client is. But you know what's interesting about the Mandos who were killed and captured in their failed attempts on their Jedi targets?"

"What?"

"They're all linked to Belok Rhal, the same man who led the raid on the Jedi Temple."

Daala chuckled. "Is that your smoking gun, Fel? Rhal may have worked for me, but that doesn't mean he can't work for anyone else in the galaxy. I can't be responsible for all the jobs he takes, especially since I still have a government to run and losses to recoup after that Abeloth fiasco. And besides, why don't you simply ask Rhal yourself?"

"You know why," Fel intoned. "It's the same reason why Queen Mother Allana can't get into contact with any of the Mandos: they don't seem to be responding to any formal or informal outreaches from either the Imperial Remnant or Hapes Consortium. Yet they still seem to be on good terms with the Galactic Alliance; we know that Mandos roam Coruscant and other GA planets and stations freely, working closely with local authorities to hunt down even minor criminals."

Daala shrugged her shoulders indifferently. "Again, I can't say I'm responsible for everything the Mandalorians do; who they work for is their business, even if it is with local Galactic Alliance authorities. I can only say that I'm responsible for the Mandalorians who work for me."

"You have more pull on Rhal and his Mandos than you let on, Chief of State Daala," Fel replied. "Which is why I demand that you speak to him right away and relay a message to him: tell him and his mercenaries to stop accepting Jedi-related jobs permanently."

Daala looked perplexed. "You demand this of me, Head of State Fel?" she asked incredulously. "I'm not one of your Moffs that you can just order around. Moreover, you can't make any demands of me anymore than I can of you; since we're both heads of state of our respective governments."

Now Fel was the one who let silence hang between him and the Chief of State. "Fine, Daala. Have it your way."

"And just what is that supposed to-"

Before she could finish that sentence, Fel had cut off the transmission.

Daala allowed herself to breathe in and out to purge even the mild annoyance she held toward Fel for that slight. As for the implied threat that served as his last words in that transmission, she knew that she would have to do more than breathe in and out.

Of course, she also knew that she couldn't just preemptively go to war with the Imperial Remnant over the Jedi; even if the GA was back up to its full strength in terms of military craft, Daala knew that she would face heavy resistance in the Senate over going to war with Fel.

No wonder Palpatine had turned the Old Republic into the Empire, Daala mused. So much less internal resistance with an autocratic regime, even if it meant a full-blown rebellion might ensue. Alas, the Mandalorians were the only option that Daala had against the Jedi.

Daala's desk intercom then buzzed. "Chief Daala, your three o'clock appointment is here," the voice of her secretary said. Her tone was that of being in a dreary, dazed state.

The Chief of State looked at the intercom in askance before she replied with, "But I don't have an-"

The door to her office opened up. And there, standing in dark robes and his hood pulled back, was a wizened, light-skinned elderly human male.

Daala was about to push the button to call for security when the man lifted a hand toward her. Immediately, Daala's hand involuntarily seized up, poised over the security button.

"Do not be alarmed, Chief of State Daala," the man intoned. "I've not come here to harm or kill you; if I wanted to end your life, it would be ended by now. And if I wanted to harm you, I would begin already."

"Who are you?" Daala asked, gritting her teeth as she struggled to push the security button. "How did you get past security?"

"The dark side of the Force renders obstacles like your security a non-issue for a Sith," the man answered as he moved to sit down in one of the guest chairs across from Daala. "Especially for a Grand Lord such as myself."

"Sith?" Daala asked in panic. Her attempts to reach for the security button ceased even as her hand was still seized up.

The man nodded. "That is correct; I am as much an enemy of the Jedi as you are. Which is why I came here to propose an alliance; unofficially, of course."

Now Daala's fear was replaced by her curiosity. "I'm listening."

The man smiled. Daala's hand was then released from his invisible Force-grip, now that he could sense that she no longer had any intention of pressing that security button.

"My name is Grand Lord Darish Vol of the Lost Tribe of the Sith," the man introduced himself. "The face you see is one covered by makeup to conceal my true visage; there are no purple-skinned Keshiri in any other part of your galaxy, so I had to take precautions to keep myself inconspicuous.

"Anyway, here is my proposal to you, Chief Daala," Vol continued in a polite and conversational tone. "You lend the Lost Tribe of the Sith some of your resources, in secret naturally, so that we can finally wipe the Jedi from existence. Those resources, by the way, include those Mandalorian mercenaries that you deny working for you.

"In return for your cooperation, not only will you live to see the Jedi finally go extinct, but you will have something that they and the Sith have: the Force."

"The Force?" Daala asked.

Vol nodded again. "You see, the Lost Tribe recently discovered a planet in the Maw that contains two sources of water that grants great power in the Force. We have already tested it among some of our non-Force-sensitive members; it has worked. If you give us what we want, you will have the ability to tap into the Force; you can even become a member of the Tribe, if you so wish."

Daala hesitated in her response. "I want to see this planet."

Vol chuckled. "Of course you do. You want to find out whether or not I am lying, do you?"

"The Sith have had quite a reputation for deceit," Daala countered.

The Grand Lord chuckled again. "That, we do. It has helped us survive in our millennia-long war against the Jedi. But I suppose that, in this case, you would want to verify my claim against our reputation; after all, I do offer you a power that you cannot hope to claim otherwise.

"Of course, would your absence from Coruscant not be noticed?"

Daala smirked. "I suppose you were hoping that my duties as Chief of State of a recuperating Galactic Alliance would keep me away from a much-needed vacation?"

"Oh, you are good, Chief Daala, you are very good," Vol responded with a laugh. "Perhaps you would make a valuable addition to the Lost Tribe after all."

"I can schedule my vacation right away," Daala said. "We can be out of here for the Maw by mid-morning tomorrow."

"Very well," Vol said. "I hope you have a good day, Chief Daala." He then stood up and left her office.

Once Vol was kilometers away from the Chief of State's office, he made an encrypted holocomm call to High Lord Ivaar Workan on Kesh.

"Lord Workan," Vol said, "we need a few more sacrifices for the Pool of Knowledge and Font of Power. But we will need them alive long enough for our new ally to view them."

"We still have several non-Force-sensitive members of the Tribe's scouting party on Abeloth's homeworld," Workan stated. "I'm sure they would like a drink, Grand Lord Vol."


	4. Chapter 3

While Hagamoor 3, a moon orbiting the Imperial-held world of Antemeridias, was far removed from any significant notice from the galaxy, those who were working within the moon's scientific research facility gave quite a lot of attention to the two new arrivals now wandering their domain.

In contrast, the two Mandalorians who passed by the scientists and security personnel in the halls took little notice of those around them; if they posed any trouble, they could simply use their arsenal of weapons to massacre everyone around them if it came to that. And their _beskar_ armor was more than capable of standing up to potential blasterfire from the stormtroopers around them.

But Mandalore Boba Fett and his granddaughter Mirta Gev knew that it wouldn't come to that; not when what Head of State Jagged Fel and his wife, Jedi Knight Jaina Solo Fel, promised them meant so much.

It only took a few minutes for Fett and Mirta to reach their destination: a lab labelled 897S. The door automatically parted before them and they entered a sterile lab that contained a whole slew of mechanical apparatus, liquids in beakers, the white-robed scientists working on everything, the whole nine yards.

Standing in a corner, away from the scientists' work, were Head of State Fel and his wife looking back at the Mandos with neutral expressions.

After a moment of silence, Mirta removed her helmet, hooked it to her belt, and gave Jedi Solo Fel a friendly (enough) smile.

"Jaina, it's good to see you again," Mirta said.

Jaina returned the greeting, her own smile no less warm. "Likewise, Mirta. It's been quite a while. How's the husband?"

"Ghes is doing all right, thanks for asking," Mirta replied.

"Enough pleasantries," Boba Fett finally spoke up.

Jaina's eyebrows lifted. "Good to see you, too, Fett," she said wryly.

"You told Mirta that your husband was developing a cure, Solo," Fett said. "This is it?"

"Well, actually, the hard-working scientists here are the ones working on the cure, Mandalore Fett," Jag said loudly enough for the scientists' benefit. "But, yes, this is the very laboratory where the cure to the nanovirus plaguing your homeworld is being developed. I'm sure one of our doctors would be willing to give you a layperson-friendly lecture on the process."

"That won't be necessary," Fett said. "I trust you to keep your word."

Both Jaina and Jag looked mildly surprised. "Coming from you, that's surprising," the former stated.

"If it were anyone else overseeing the development of this cure, I'd wanna verify it," Fett responded. "But I trust you and your husband, Solo. Just tell us, though: how much longer will it take before the cure's complete?"

"Our estimation is about half a year," Jag said. "But, honestly? That's being generous; it could take up to another two years, if that."

"And I assume that you want me to outlaw any and all Mandalorians from hunting down Jedi anywhere in the galaxy, even in Imperial and Hapan space, right away?" Fett asked.

"Would there be a problem with that?" Jaina asked.

"Quite frankly," Fett began, "it wouldn't matter if you had this cure completed and deployed right away over Mandalore. You're asking me to tell the entire Mandalorian nation that it's now illegal to hunt down a specific kind of bounty; while I'll have my supporters, do you have any idea how many are on Belok Rhal's side on hunting Jedi? You might as well be asking me to start a civil war within Mandalore."

"We don't wanna break your people apart, Mandalore Fett," Jag said. "But you have to understand, Chief of State Daala won't-"

"What Daala does and doesn't wanna do isn't my concern unless she pays me enough to make it my concern," Fett said.

"Oh, really?" Jaina interjected. "You and she are quite chummy. I wouldn't be surprised if you were to break her out of prison, even if she didn't pay you for it."

"What makes you say that?" Mirta was the one to ask. "And what's with this hypothetical scenario about breaking her out of prison? Last I checked, she was Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance."

"And she also used to be an Imperial warlord," Jaina countered with an edge of ice in her voice. "It's funny how changes in the galaxy land people in the most unexpected of positions."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mirta asked. Whatever friendliness between her and Jaina was rapidly evaporating.

"It means that if your grandfather doesn't put a kabosh on the Mandalorians hunting down Jedi," Jag said, "neither of you can ever set foot down on Mandalore ever again. Everything you see here, the research, datafiles, even handwritten notes, can all just disappear if you, Boba Fett, don't cooperate. And don't think that you're badass enough to find these scientists once we hide them from you or any of your mercs if you try to find them."

"You'd be surprised, Fel," Fett replied coldly.

"Well, maybe I would be," Jag replied with a mock-conciliatory tone. "But we won't make it easy, or bloodless, for you. Sure, you're not afraid to get your hands dirty, but I imagine you'd rather this whole thing go over much more smoothly."

"And don't think you can just back out now and say that it doesn't really matter to you whether or not you, your daughter, or granddaughter can't go home," Jaina added. "Not when you've already come all the way out here to hear us out."

Except for the sound of work coming from the scientists, who seemed to be oblivious to the tension growing between the Fels and Fetts, several heartbeats of silence passed before anyone said anything.

"There's no way I can convince Daala to call off Rhal's mercs," Fett said. "But maybe I can have a sit-down with Rhal himself. I can't promise he'll agree to corral his people; in fact, I find it highly unlikely that he will."

"Then maybe there's an alternative arrangement," Jaina suggested.

"We're listening," Fett said.

"You can at least allow your people to talk and do business with the Imperial Remnant and Hapes Consortium," Jaina said. "That way, we can hire you out."

"You Jedi want Mandalorians to protect you from other Mandalorians?" Fett asked incredulously.

"Well, not as bodyguards, if that's what you're thinking," Jaina said. "But maybe they can aid local law enforcement the same way that Daala has her Mandos over in the GA."

"So that way," Fett said, "when one of you Jedi gets in trouble with Rhal's mercs, one of my people can come in and lend a hand, is that it?"

Jaina nodded. "Sounds about right."

Fett crossed his arms and was silent for a moment; Jaina figured that he must have been thinking the agreement over.

"We have a deal," the Mandalore finally said.


	5. Chapter 4

Grand Lord Vol wished that he hadn't had those first two non-Force-sensitive members of the Lost Tribe simply executed after they drank from the Font of Power and bathed in the Pool of Knowledge. But it wasn't because he regretted their deaths; he regretted his surprising lack of foresight on having any DNA samples from those first two before they died and had their corpses disposed of via that planet's star.

Thus, when Vol had Workan order two more non-Force-sensitives to drink from the Font and bathe in the Pool, the Grand Lord made sure to add to the High Lord, "And make sure DNA samples are collected from them both before they go through their transformations and then before they are executed."

Thus, after Vol and Daala set off on their respective journeys to the Maw—they each took different transports and paths so as to avoid suspicion—Vol received a transmission from Workan before the former entered the black hole cluster.

"It is done, My Lord," Workan reported. "Saber Vyn Holpur has reported the success of the plan."

"How badly garbled was the transmission from Saber Holpur?" Vol asked. "I hope that nothing was lost."

"I assure you, Lord Vol," Workan said, "I caught every word. Would you like to see a record of the transmission yourself?"

"I would," Vol affirmed.

"Very well, My Lord. Please give me a moment."

A moment later, Workan's image was added by the visage of Sith Saber Vyn Holpur right next to him. Indeed, in spite of the static interference that made transmissions between the Maw and the rest of the galaxy tricky, the boost in gain during the transmission managed to catch every word that Holpur had. The non-Force-sensitives had their DNA samples collected, ordered to drink from the Font of Power and bathe in the Pool of Knowledge, their DNA samples were collected again, and then they were promptly executed.

When the recording ended and it was just Workan that Vol was looking at again, the Grand Lord said, "Good work, High Lord. Now that Saber Holpur has the DNA samples, here is what I want him to do with them."

A few days later, when both Vol and Daala finally arrived to the mysterious jungle world in the Maw, their respective shuttles touched down upon a nearby beach next to each other.

After they disembarked from their vessels and met each other, Daala's eyes widened in mild surprise at Vol's purple complexion.

"So that is what you look like without your makeup?" Daala enquired. "Well, I must say, it's quite... exotic."

Vol raised an eyebrow. "I will take that as a compliment."

"As well you should," Daala replied evenly.

Before Vol had a chance to respond, he and Daala's heads turned to the entrance of the nearby jungle where a party of half a dozen Sith emerged, two of whom were dressed in casual civilian clothing. At the lead was a familiar human male, Vyn Holpur.

"Saber Holpur," Vol greeted with a strict, authoritarian tone befitting for a Sith Grand Lord. "Please present to Chief of State Daala the recently former non-Force-sensitives who drank from the Font of Power and bathed in the Pool of Knowledge."

"Of course, Grand Lord Vol," Holpur replied. He then waved theatrically at the two "former non-Force-sensitives," a young female human and a middle-aged male Keshiri.

However, Vol knew, as much as Holpur did, that these two had always been Sith, and were both currently Sabers at that. But for this ruse to work on Daala, until they allegedly drank and bathed in the Font and Pool respectively, they had no ability to grasp the Force.

The human woman reached a hand out and used the Force to fling a thick branch from a fallen tree by the edge of the treeline behind her. She then launched it high into the air, where she released her grasp and allowed it to begin its rapid descent for the ground.

That was when the Keshiri reached his own hand up for the branch and unleashed a torrent of Force-lightning that obliterated it into a cloud of mist and only a few dozen pieces of bark that collapsed harmlessly to the sand below.

When the brief demonstration passed, Daala turned to Vol and asked, "How can you verify their identities?"

"That would be Saber Holpur's duty," Vol replied. "Saber Holpur?"

Holpur then brought out his datapad from his belt and approached Vol and Daala with it. He then turned the 'pad to face the Chief of State.

"Here is all the information that you need to verify who they are, Chief Daala," Holpur said as he handed her the 'pad.

Daala took the device and began looking through the information presented there. According to what the info said, the DNA matched up with the images of the human woman and Keshiri man. There was also a midi-chlorian count from what they had before their "experiences" in the Font and Pool to what they were after.

Naturally, all of the information was fake, but Workan had instructed Holpur to be thorough in the work he put into it... or rather, the work that he had one of the Lost Tribe's computer geniuses put into it.

"I hope neither of you object to another DNA test," Daala said to the human woman and Keshiri man when she finally passed the 'pad back to Holpur.

Vol had anticipated this, which was why he said, without hesitation, "Of course they would." He then waved the man and woman over to him.

Once the man, Saber Pletoth, and woman, Saber Gheray, joined Vol and Daala, the latter said, "I have a DNA analyzer aboard my ship; it's been installed for just this occasion. It can verify these results with this new blood test in a few minutes."

Vol nodded. "Very well."

Several minutes later, the test came back positive; Pletoth and Gheray were who Vol and Holpur said they were.

And that was because both Pletoth and Gheray's actual blood samples were input into Holpur's datapad and, through some computer trickery, were made to match with the midi-chlorian counts that had been displayed from the sacrificed non-Force-sensitives. As for Pletoth and Gheray's own midi-chlorian counts in the blood samples that they gave to Daala, Workan had seen to it that both Sabers underwent a quick but grueling meditative Force-exercise that would modify the appearance of their midi-chlorians to match those of the dead non-Force-sensitives.

That cosmetic modification would wear off in a few hours; but by then, Daala should be satisfied with the results that she had seen and would question them no further.

"I've seen enough from here," Daala said in her shuttle's medbay, where the blood test took place. "They can go."

Vol nodded to Pletoth and Gheray, who promptly left the ship.

"Now tell me, Lord Vol," Daala said, "why can I not see a non-Force-sensitive drink from this Font of Power and bathe in this Pool of Knowledge?"

"Because I am afraid, Chief Daala," Vol nodded, "that there would not be enough time for you to view the whole process. You see, it takes several days for the process to take hold, and that is time that you cannot afford to spare on your little vacation. You have already spent enough time off of Coruscant just getting to the Maw; by the time you return, your vacation should be well and truly over. And you have no choice but to return to your duties as Chief of State of a recovering Galactic Alliance."

Daala's eyes narrowed; Vol didn't need the Force to tell that the Chief of State was suspicious. Still, he knew that she couldn't contradict him; she really did have duties that she was letting slip by already back on Coruscant.

"Very well," Daala finally said. "It'll have to do. Until we meet again, Grand Lord Vol."

Vol nodded and left Daala's ship.

Once her shuttle returned to the skies above, Workan, who was watching the ship depart alongside Vol, said to his Grand Lord, "It's a good thing she didn't see what actually became of those who drank and bathed from the Font and Pool, My Lord."

"Indeed," Vol replied. "Otherwise, she would never have agreed to this arrangement."


	6. Chapter 5

The Fountain Palace wasn't the only building in need of reconstruction on Hapes, as there were plenty of leveled structures in the capital city of Ta'a Chume'Dan alone. And as part of his assignment to this planet, Ben was tasked with helping wherever he could, even if it meant volunteering to help out in reconstruction efforts.

Unfortunately, there were very few places on the entire planet, let alone in Ta'a Chume'Dan, that would allow a Jedi to help out in any capacity. And even dressing down in casual civilian clothing to hide the fact that he was a Jedi didn't help since not only was he well-known as the son of Luke Skywalker, but he had also been famous—or infamous, depending on one's point of view—for his actions during the Second Galactic Civil War.

Ben didn't want to think about the fact that he was also, at least believed to be, related to Darth Caedus, one of the greatest monsters in galactic history.

So, aside from keeping up with his lightsaber practices in the Fountain Palace's dojo, there were only ever three locations where Ben was accepted to assist in repairing: a wedding cake bakery, a cosmetic appliance store, and a beauty spa. Every now and then, he would stop by to help, as the managers told him that they were only willing to accept his help if he didn't wear his Jedi robes, and he would only be allowed to work for about four hours a day about once every week or two. Then he would be sent along, whether it was because they didn't have anymore additional supplies or because the managers simply thought that that would be all for the day.

Today, however, Ben wasn't allowed to work on any of those places; for the bakery, they just didn't have supplies. The store and the spa, on the other hand, thought they didn't need him.

Which was fine by him. He wasn't in the mood to help out anyway; he was still angry with his last sparring contest/argument with Jacen days before.

Ben knew that he shouldn't be angry with Jacen; he knew that he, indeed, wasn't Darth Caedus. That had been proven months ago, so it wasn't that Ben didn't believe in the proof. Yet, at the same time, no matter how much he tried to separate Jacen from Caedus, Ben's heart wouldn't let him accept him back into his life.

It wasn't just because Jacen looked like Caedus; he _felt_ like Caedus. Oh, sure, he lacked the dark side presence that his clone had, but his Force-presence was the same. And it was that Force-presence that served as a constant reminder of the man who killed Mara Jade Skywalker, Ben's mother; the man who had nearly torn the Skywalker-Solo clan apart, who had plunged the galaxy into a bloody war, was based off of the DNA of Ben's cousin. And no matter how much anyone tried to tell him to try to accept Jacen as part of his family, Ben could never find it within himself to do so when he still held so much resentment, so much hatred, for Darth Caedus.

Ben knew that a Jedi should never give himself into hatred or anger, that he should give himself over to peace and serenity. And in the years since the last war ended, he had been doing just that... or at least he thought he was.

There was no reason to think that he hadn't improved himself in the time since Caedus died; he was a skilled Jedi who had been granted the rank of Knight before he even became a legal adult, he had made his father proud, and he became closer to him and the rest of his family. Ben thought that if Caedus had left any kind of positive impact on his life, it would be that he had made his relationship with his family and his sense of self, especially as a Jedi, much stronger.

And then Jacen, the _real_ Jacen, came back into their lives. Ben could still remember when he tried to strike the man down, believing that it had been Caedus reborn. He had been stopped, of course, and between that and the defeat of Abeloth, everything that Ben thought he knew, everything that he based his life experiences around, had been abruptly pulled out from under him and he didn't know how to take any of it.

He didn't care about the facts as the rest of his family did; he didn't care about the fact that Jacen had literally been slaving away on a planet in the Unknown Regions while the man who would become Darth Caedus was living his life. Ben couldn't muster up any sympathy for his cousin's traumatic experiences, even if it was all true.

When the man looked like Caedus, and felt like Caedus, even if he didn't act like him, Ben could never allow himself to emotionally disassociate his cousin from his Sith clone.

It was a long walk between the Fountain Palace and his destination; he could have taken a hovercab or bus, but Ben preferred to be left alone with his thoughts. And during his walk, he stopped by a flower shop, one of the few structures in Ta'a Chume'Dan to have been completely rebuilt since Abeloth's Infestation, where he bought a bouquet of some lovely black roses. The shop owner gave him a mild sneer even as she gave him his change, probably because of typical Hapan anti-Jedi sentiment, but Ben didn't care; not when he was on his way to probably the only person in the galaxy, outside of anyone in his family (excluding Jacen, of course), for whom he cared.

Minutes after leaving the flower shop, Ben knocked on the door of a modest apartment unit. Seconds later, the door opened and Ben was greeted by the warm smile of his secret girlfriend.

"Hey, you," she said.

"Hey yourself," he replied coyly. "Brought you your favorites."

"Oh, you remember," the girl said as she accepted the bouquet in both hands. She took a moment to breathe in the aroma from the black roses, closed her eyes to truly revel in the scent, before she breathed out a satisfied sigh and opened her eyes directly upon Ben.

"Please, come on in, Ben," she said. "Let me fix you up a drink."

"Thanks, Ves," he replied as he stepped in. "I'd like that."

When Vestara Khai, Sith Tyro of the Lost Tribe of the Sith, closed the door behind Ben, she set the bouquet down on her coffee table and went to get him some nice, inebriating Corellian whiskey.


	7. Chapter 6

The hangover from the whiskey didn't allow Ben to remember much about the previous night. But from what he could remember, he knew that he never wanted to forget any of it.

In fact, the joy he got from making love to Vestara was what allowed him to pull himself out of bed and put his clothes back on while barely nursing his headache. Once he was fully clothed, he walked out of Vestara's bedroom and found her relaxing on her living room's sofa. She was sipping on a glass of water with an obvious hint of a hydrating solute in it while wearing a form-fitting scarlet bathrobe.

She turned her head to the left to look at him and gave him an even more satisfied smile than the one she greeted him with the previous night.

"Morning," Vestara said after taking another sip.

"Morning," he replied with a mixture of contentedness and pain. "You got anymore of that?"

Vestara motioned her drink hand over to the kitchen, between her and Ben. "In the sink. Surprisingly drinkable."

"No, I meant whatever you put in the water," Ben clarified.

"Oh, it's in the cupboard above the sink," Vestara said.

"Thanks," Ben said before he moved to the sink.

Moments later, he sat down next to Vestara, nursing the water with the same hydrating solute in it that should cure his own hangover. With his free arm, he wrapped it around Vestara's shoulders and began sipping on his solution while barely paying any attention to the Hapan holo reality show that she was watching. It had something to do with some air-headed aristocratic females judging some outfits worn by typically attractive Hapan women who were barely in their twenties; Ben had trouble concentrating since he was still trying to nurse his hangover.

Well, that, and the fact that Ves decided to rest her head on his shoulder while placing her own free arm across his lap; that definitely distracted him from the vapid reality show.

"You hungry yet?" Ves finally asked before taking another sip.

"Starved," Ben replied after a gulp. "Wanna go out and get somethin' to eat?"

She shook her head. "I can whip somethin' up." Ves moved to sit up.

"Oh, c'mon, you don't have to do that, Ves," Ben said as he pulled her back down to the sofa. She spilled a few drips from her glass upon landing. "Look, I can go ahead and do it. What do you want?"

"You c'mon," she replied playfully. "I'm the hostess. I should get you somethin' to eat."

Ben gave her a quirky smile. "Well, if you insist," he said. "Bacon and eggs?"

"Comin' right up," she replied before she stood up. Ben didn't pull Ves back down this time.

"So when do you have to get back to the Fountain Palace?" she asked once she was in the kitchen. By that point, she set her drink down on the counter.

"Honestly, I'm not on any concrete timetable," Ben replied as he grabbed the remote from where Ves was sitting and used it to change the channel. "But I guess I should probably call in about an hour before anyone over there wakes up."

"I bet it's nice over there. Even with all the renovations it's still undergoing," she said as she moved to the fridge to get out a carton of eggs and a package of bacon strips.

"Yeah, but it's not as nice as being with you," he said.

Ves giggled as she placed the carton and package next to the stove. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Ben."

"No, I mean it," he said as he stood up, leaving the holoplayer running on a random channel; it was displaying yet another fashion show. He walked over to the kitchen, his drink set down on the coffee table in front of the sofa. "I do feel a lot better when I'm with you."

Ves grinned once he made it to the kitchen and stood before her. She even bit her lower lip and barely evaded his gaze. "Well, Ben, are you sure you want that breakfast?"

"I think it can wait," he said. "You?"

"I'm not hungry either," she said. Ves then moved in to kiss him while Ben began to undo the knot in the center of her robe.

But before they could go any further with what they intended to do (again), there was a knock on the door. They both stopped and looked to the door before looking back at each other, this time with shared confusion.

"You expecting anyone?" Ben asked.

Ves shook her head. "I'll go answer it."

"Please, allow me this time," Ben said. "I know you're the 'hostess' and whatnot, but I wanna check."

"Wait, can't you sense who's on the other side?" Ves asked.

Ben narrowed his eyes to the door. "Well... normally, I could, but this time... the presence is surprisingly... elusive."

Another knock came from the door, this one more insistent than the last.

"Go to the bedroom, lock yourself in," Ben said. "Could be trouble."

Ves gave no argument and did as he bid. Once the bedroom door was closed and shut, an even more insistent knock came from outside. Ben unhooked his lightsaber from his belt and very gingerly stepped over to the door.

And when he peeked through the peephole, his eyes widened at who he saw there.

"Ben, I know you're in there," Jacen said from outside. "I could hear you. Now open up."

Ben gritted his teeth as he backed away from the peephole, leaving the door still closed and locked. "How'd you find me?" he asked.

"I used the Force to track your presence, obviously," Jacen said.

"Then why couldn't I sense you?" Ben asked.

"I have my ways of masking my own presence," Jacen replied impatiently. "Now, please, open the door."

"Why should I?" Ben asked. "Shouldn't you be back at the Fountain Palace with your wife?"

"Ben, what are you doing in there? Who are you with?"

"That's none of your business! Now go away!"

"Don't make me cut this door down, Ben."

"You wouldn't _dare_," Ben growled.

The _snap-hiss_ of a lightsaber sounded from the other side. "Wanna bet?" Jacen asked, his tone challenging. "You have five seconds."

"Oh, please, you really wanna destroy public property just to get to me?"

"Four."

"This would be called breaking and entering, you know."

"Three."

"With your reputation, I doubt even Allana's influence can bail you out of this one."

"She's Queen Mother; her word is law on this planet, and she'll understand why I had to do it. Two."

Ben sighed irritably. "All right, all right, I'll open the damn door."

When the door was open, Jacen had his lightsaber deactivated and hooked back to his belt.

"May I come in?" Jacen asked in a mock-cordial tone.

"We can talk outside."

"No, I really think I should come in," Jacen said before he moved past Ben and into the apartment.

Ben looked aghast at his cousin as Jacen was surveying the apartment. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" the younger Jedi asked.

"Just wondering what was so special about this place that prompted you to stay the night," Jacen said casually while still surveying the apartment.

Ben gasped. "You followed me here, didn't you?"

"Ben, I told you, I didn't have to follow you," Jacen said as he looked back at him. "I used the Force to track you here."

"You have no right to be here," Ben countered as he leveled an accusatory finger up to the older man. "Now get lost!"

Before Jacen could say anything, the bedroom door opened.

"Ben, is everything all right?" Ves asked, looking concerned. Her bathrobe was tied up into a knot in the center again.

"Ves, please, go back into the bedroom, let me handle this," Ben said.

"Ves, huh?" Jacen asked as he looked toward her. "So you're the reason Ben spent the night here, I assume?"

"Don't answer him, Ves, just back into your room," Ben said with some desperation in his tone.

"No, Ben, please," Ves said, "I can speak for myself."

That shut Ben up; but the reluctance on his expression was quite obvious.

"Yes, I'm the reason Ben spent the night in my apartment," Ves confirmed as she stepped out of her room and walked toward him. "My name is Vestara Khai." She held her hand out for him to shake. "And you must be Ben's cousin, Jacen."

"That's correct, I am Ben's cousin," Jacen affirmed as he shook her hand, "and his legal guardian. And as his legal guardian, I must ask what was he doing here last night?"

"Quite frankly, Jedi Solo," Ves said with a stern voice as she broke off the handshake, "as Ben himself said before you threatened to chop my door down to enter my apartment, that's none of your business." The shy and concerned persona that she had when she opened the bedroom door had been quickly replaced by someone with an authority that was beyond her years.

Jacen looked at her in askance. "Are your parents home, Vestara? Or do you prefer Ves?"

"Miss Khai will do for you, Jedi Solo. And, no, my parents aren't home. They're off on sabbatical."

"Really? What do they do for a living, Miss Khai?"

"How many questions are you going to ask that aren't any of your concern, Jedi Solo?"

"You assume they're none of my concern when nothing could be further from the truth, especially when you have my cousin mixed up in whatever you got going on here."

"And what exactly do you think I have going on here, Jedi Solo?"

"You tell me. You're obviously too young to be living in a place like this on your own. So it makes me wonder what you do with your spare time with my cousin."

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm a little too old to need a babysitter; my parents trust me to keep the place tidy when they're gone."

"I bet they do. So how long have you and Ben known each other, Miss Khai?"

"Jacen, can you please leave?!" Ben finally shouted. "This is none of your concern!"

"Ben, who is she?" Jacen asked. "How long have you been keeping her a secret from me?"

"I don't have to answer any of your questions," Ben growled. "Now leave before I really get angry."

Ben made a deliberately conspicuous motion for the lightsaber on his belt.

Jacen looked nonplussed back at his cousin. "Really, Ben? You're gonna try to kill me over this?"

"I thought there was only do or do not," Ben intoned. "That there was no try."

The tension in the room became thick with silence.

"Fine," Jacen said. "Have it your way. But don't think I won't get your father involved in this."

Ben sneered. "Oh, what, you're gonna tattle on me? Oooh, I'm so scared. Go ahead, I dare you. What are you gonna tell him? That I've been with a girl that I didn't tell you about and that you threatened to cut her door down just to find out who she was? Please. Now are you gonna leave or not?"

"I'll go, I'll go," Jacen said with hands raised up as he moved past Ben to the door. "But you know this isn't over."

"With you, it's never over," Ben said.

Jacen said nothing more; he only gave his cousin a pitied glare before he finally left.

When Jacen was gone and the door was closed behind him, Ben finally let out a sigh of frustrated relief. He then walked back to the living room and crashed down upon the sofa, his headache becoming a pounding rhythm that he tried desperately to massage at the temples.

"You okay?" Ves asked once she joined him. When she sat down next to him, she was the one to put her arm around his shoulders.

He nodded without looking at her. "I'll get over it." He then looked at her, his hands dropping away from his head. "Look, I'm sorry about him coming in here like that and being rude to you. It's just that-"

"Hey, hey, you have nothing to explain or apologize for," Ves interrupted as she pulled him in closer. She then allowed his head to lay across her lap. "As he said, he's your cousin and legal guardian. He's concerned for you."

"That doesn't give him any excuse over what he did coming over here like that," Ben replied.

Ves allowed a moment of silence to pass before she said, "No, of course it doesn't. So, then, what do you think you're gonna do about it?"

"Let him talk to my dad first," he replied. "Then when he gets my side of the story, he'll see how right I am. I can make my own decisions; Jacen doesn't have to butt in on every little thing I do."

"Indeed, not," Ves said with a barely discernible grin. She allowed yet another silent moment to pass before she asked, "Ben?"

"Hmm?"

"Would you really have tried to kill your cousin if he didn't leave?"

This time, Ben sat up and looked directly at her; Ves had barely gotten rid of the grin before promptly replacing it with her previous look of concern.

"Honestly, Ves? I would have."

She allowed her eyes to widen in surprise before she said, "Wow. Wow, Ben. I didn't know you felt... that strongly for me."

"Oh, I do" he said with a nod. "That wasn't just sweet talk. I'd do anything for you."

"Really? Anything?"

He nodded.

Ves looked away for a moment before giving him a grin that was much more mischievous. "You know, when you say that to a girl... you're inviting yourself to be challenged." She then moved her hand smoothly down his face before slipping it down the collar of his shirt.

"I'm a Jedi, Ves. I like challenges."

"And I love to hear that." She then grabbed his shirt and took it off for him right before they each moved to embrace each other in a passionate kiss.


	8. Chapter 7

"Hey, Anakin," Tahiri said in a tone that tried to be upbeat. "It's been a while, hasn't it?."

She spoke these words before the memorial of Chewbacca, who had died at the start of the Yuuzhan Vong War nearly two decades prior. The reason that she was addressing these words to Anakin Solo was because his lightsaber had been buried up to the hilt by his father, Han, after the war ended about a decade and a half ago.

"Jag told me I shouldn't come here alone, that I should at least have a squad of stormtroopers to help me out in case any Mandalorians came after me," Tahiri explained as if she were just having a casual conversation with Anakin. Her tone continued to waver, as if she were on the verge of losing all composure of her emotions. "I told him that it was more important for me to be alone for this. He and I argued about it, but, in the end, I won."

She couldn't help but break into a nervous smile. "He still thought that he could make me compromise; that I should go with someone like Jaina or even Lowie. Someone I'd be comfortable with, who would've remembered you with me. I told Jag, 'Still no. If any Mandos come my way... they'll have hell to pay.' Heh, I just realized that rhymed."

Tahiri let a moment pass by, as if Anakin's spirit refused to say anything to her.

What little mirth in Tahiri's expression evaporated, and her tone became completely somber as she continued. "I wonder if I should have even come back here. I feel guilty, you know. I guess everyone does; I think they call it survivor's guilt. But it isn't just that I feel bad that I lived and you died, Anakin. It's that I feel bad that any part of me thought it would be a good idea to come back here after what... after what... Darth Caedus did here." She spat the name out like poison.

During the Second Galactic Civil War, Caedus began a worldwide fire via orbital bombardment of Kashyyyk. And Tahiri felt guilty for that because, at the time, Caedus was grooming her to be his apprentice, and one of the ways he ensured her loyalty was by using the Aing-Tii technique of flow-walking to travel back through time. With that technique, Tahiri could see Anakin again... before he died during the Mission to Myrkr.

"When that bastard was alive," Tahiri continued, "he used my memories, my love, for you, like he was a spice dealer. And, oh, boy, was I junkie. I was a junkie lookin' for my next fix, and that fix was seeing if I could make things better. That maybe I could have even brought you back; but it was a lie. It was all a lie. Nothing I could have done could have fixed what happened; no one could have tampered with the Force enough to alter the timeline."

Tahiri allowed herself a breath to keep herself from breaking down into uncontrollable sobs. "You know, I thought I could have moved on without you. I thought merging with Riina all those years ago would have strengthened my sense of self and help me finally end my grieving for you, Anakin. But I was wrong. I was so wrong. And if it hadn't been for your baby cousin, Ben, pulling me back from the dark side, I would have been completely consumed.

"Then I thought that leaving the Jedi Order would help me give me more time to heal. But as time went on, and I really started to think about it, I wondered if I could ever get over you. The trauma that Caedus left in his wake certainly didn't help me.

"But then your actual brother, Jacen, came back into our lives! And as if that weren't enough to leave my emotions confused, Daala's Mandos attacked us, and I wasn't even a Jedi anymore than I was a Sith! And because of that, I tasted the dark side.

"I tortured someone, Anakin. I used the dark side when I did that. And it didn't stop there; I lured a bunch of cops and Mandos into a trap where they could have died. Hell, from what I heard, I think one of the Mandos and three of the cops did die. The others barely escaped; and it was my fault!

"But you know what the scary thing about it all is? I don't even feel guilty about what I did. I feel scared that I don't feel guilty, but I still don't feel guilty if that makes any sense. I justified it to both myself and the Jedi, Seff Hellin, who thought that what I did was wrong, even if it meant that my actions helped save the Jedi with me.

"I thought about going back to the Order, maybe to repent for everything I've done. Your Uncle Luke is a very forgiving man, Anakin; and I know the rest of your family would be able to accept me."

Then she fully broke out into a full sob as she sank to her hands and knees. "But I can't accept myself back to them!" She didn't even try to formulate anymore words; she just cried.

But after a while, the crying stopped... abruptly, at that. And that was because of the sound of a rifle being cocked several meters behind Tahiri.

She froze where she was; how did she not sense the danger to herself? Was she that absorbed into her own self-pity that not even her Force-senses could warn her that there was someone, a Mandalorian most likely, coming to take her captive or, worse, kill her?

"You won't have to worry about anyone accepting you back, witch," a familiar, and threatening, voice said from behind her. "Now stand up, hands over your head, and turn around slowly. Don't you think about reaching for your lightsaber; otherwise, this is gonna get a lot more painful for you than even I intended."

Tahiri gritted her teeth, but she did as the threatening man demanded. When she finally turned to face him, she saw that he was, indeed, a Mandalorian with a carbine pointed directly at her chest.

And as Tahiri got a good look at his helmet and armor, she found them just as familiar as his voice.

"You know, hearing you say you didn't feel bad about torturing me makes this a lot sweeter than I thought it'd be," the Mando said.

He then reached one hand up to remove his helmet, and then Tahiri's eyes widened.

It was the merc she tortured back on Coruscant all those months ago. Now he was looking back at her with a malicious grin.

"Yeah, that's right," he said, his tone as self-satisfied as his smile. "I'm all fixed up from your handiwork. And now that you get to look me directly in the eyes, I can finally-"

The sound of a blaster shot rang out through the forest around them. Both Tahiri and the Mando seized up.

But it was the merc who dropped prone to the ground, a smoking crater in the back of his head.

And right behind where he stood was yet another Mando, their own smoking blaster still pointed in Tahiri's direction on account of where the dead merc was.

When this new merc, who had yellow striping along their armor, finally lowered their blaster, the Mando said, in a male voice, "You're welcome, Jedi."

He then turned away and headed back toward the treeline.

When Tahiri finally recovered from her surprise and bewilderment, she called out, "Hey, wait!"

The Mando stopped in his tracks and turned back to face Tahiri as she caught up with him.

"Why'd you do that?" she asked him. "Why'd you help me? Why'd you kill one of your own?"

"It's part of my job," the merc said. "It doesn't matter to me who I kill to accomplish it." He turned away again.

"Wait, wait," Tahiri said as she stepped in front of him, cutting him off from going any further. "What is your job exactly?"

"To protect you, Miss Veila," the merc replied stoically. "I was hired by Jagged Fel to watch over you."

_Damn you, Jag_, Tahiri thought contemptuously.

"Now, if you'll let me continue to do my job," the merc said, "I can return to the forest and watch over you from there."

"I'm still not done with you," Tahiri said. "How long have you been watching me? Were you tailing me since I left Bastion?"

"Yes."

Tahiri sighed in frustration. "If I told you to go home, would you do it?"

"You're not the one paying me."

"I'll take that as a no. Look, can you at least take a day off or something? I'd really like to be alone today, and I'd prefer not to be watched by a professional stalker."

"Believe me, I'd love nothing more than to have let my friend back there end your life; from what he told me about what you did to him, I'd have done the same in his place."

"In that case, why'd you take the job if you knew that you might have had to kill your friend?"

"A job's a job, money's money; things like sentimentality and friendship are roadblocks to what really matter in life."

"Which is what to you, exactly?"

The Mando didn't answer her question. Instead, he said, "Head of State Fel is paying me a hefty sum to keep you alive, more than what Rhal or Daala would have been willing to pay. So if you wanna make my job more difficult than it already is, it makes no real difference to me. Now you gonna let me pass?"

Tahiri looked him over before she said, "Just one more thing."

The annoyance in his voice was obvious. "What?"

"I'm not a Jedi; not anymore."

"Wouldn't matter to someone like Daala."

Tahiri didn't say anything before she finally stepped out of his way and let him walk off.

"I didn't get your name!" Tahiri called back.

"No, you didn't," he replied. He said nothing more before merging with the treeline.


	9. Chapter 8

When Daala finally returned home in her high-rise apartment after a long day at work, she was about to remove her Chief of State's uniform when she froze. Sitting on her incredibly expensive sofa was Grand Lord Darish Vol, once again wearing his light-skinned makeup.

"I paid a visit to the LiMerge building earlier today while you were at work," Vol said without preamble. "Very interesting research you have your scientists working on there."

"What have you done?" Daala asked with both fear and anger.

Vol smirked. "Relax, Chief of State," he said as he stood up and walked over to her casually. "I did nothing more than a simple reconnaissance. Again, none of your security or scientific personnel noticed me thanks to my use of the Force; and you will find much of your security footage scrambled beyond recovery. As for the research itself, I allowed it to continue unmolested."

"If you know what I had those scientists working on, why didn't you-"

"I did not wish to waste any effort in destroying it," Vol said. "It was not worth it."

"Not worth it?"

"What you are having those scientists work on is a fool's errand," Vol said. "You cannot hope that they can succeed."

"Why is that? Why do you think it's a fool's errand?"

"The Force is more than a simple matter of manipulating midi-chlorians. It is a power beyond your understanding, and one that you can only hope to achieve, unless you were born with it, when you drink from the Font of Power and bathe in the Pool of Knowledge. Anything else is folly."

"So why did you come here?" Daala asked.

"I just wanted to let you know that there is nothing that you can hide from me or the Lost Tribe of the Sith, Chief Daala," Vol intoned. "Now I leave it up to you as to whether or not you wish to discontinue that research; as I have made clear, what you hope to achieve is a waste of resources."

Daala's mouth dropped in realization of Vol's true motives in this meeting. "Is this your diplomatic solution, Lord Vol?"

"To what?"

"To having me willingly discontinue my research into midi-chlorians without resorting to violence," Daala said. "After all, what you want from me is more resources, such as in armaments and ships. If you had to resort to going after the LiMerge building, or at least resort to sending some of your Sith to do the job, this is what would happen: there would be a decrease of potential resources for you to exploit and you may even lose a few Sith. You have nothing to gain from destroying the research and killing everybody there; if anything, it might also give you and your little Tribe some unwanted attention from the local authorities, even if it was over at an out-of-the-way location like the LiMerge. And I might not be in the mood to tell them to stand down from hunting you or your people down."

Vol was silent for several heartbeats before he finally spoke. "Fine. Continue to waste your resources on this pitiable experiment you have running, Daala. What the Tribe could have gained from a reallocation of those resources would have been negligible anyway."

"Will that be all, Lord Vol? Or would you like to stay for some coffee? Some tea?" She asked all of this with a self-satisfied smile.

Vol said nothing more before he left the apartment. Daala's grin only widened as she went to the refresher to take a long shower.

. . .

Once again, Jacen watched Ben as he went through Ataru and Djem So in the Fountain Palace's dojo. But this time, at his side, Jacen's Uncle Luke watched with him.

It was several minutes before Ben finished his rounds and stopped. And it was only then that he turned to notice that both Luke and Jacen were standing by the dojo's entrance.

But instead of giving his cousin a death glare as he might normally do, Ben gave his father a surprised stare.

"You're getting sloppy, you know," Jacen said. "Those techniques need to be executed with more precision strikes and a greater sense of personal balance. There were several instances where an actual opponent could have used it to his advantage to knock you off your feet."

Ben said nothing as he looked between his father and cousin, appearing to be unsure of what to say or do next.

"Well, normally," Jacen as he looked to the Jedi Grand Master, "he would have said something along the lines of, 'You have nothing to teach me,' or, 'Mind your own business,' or, 'I'm a Jedi Knight, not an apprentice anymore.' I wonder why he's speechless now, Uncle Luke."

"I may have a few ideas, Jacen," Luke said as he and his nephew entered the dojo to approach Ben. "All of them related to everything you told me in our last hypercomm transmission."

When they were both about a meter from Ben, they stopped in their tracks.

"Hello, Ben," Luke finally said to his son. "Jacen's been telling me some very... interesting things about your time here on Hapes. I'd like to hear your side of the story, if you don't mind."

Ben was silent for quite a while before his father asked, "Well?"

Ben allowed a few more seconds to pass before he finally said, "I was trying to find some happiness, Dad. And Vestara was providing it for me."

"Vestara, huh?" Luke asked. "And do you mind telling me who this Vestara is? When did you meet? Why didn't you tell Jacen or even me about it in one of our own holotransmissions?"

Ben then looked off to the side, as if there were something more interesting going on away from his father and cousin's general direction.

"Ben, look at me," Luke said. "You're gonna answer my questions. Because I have quite a few concerns about Vestara, given what Jacen told me about her."

"Oh, what did he tell you?" Ben snapped as he looked directly into Luke's eyes. "How she was a bad hostess to him after he threatened to cut her door down just to find out what I was doing there?"

"Jacen told me about that," Luke said evenly. "But that's not quite what concerns me."

"Then what?" Ben asked, his negative attitude still going.

"Jacen told me... that her Force-presence was quite... undefinable to him," Luke said.

Ben looked at his cousin with a questioning look. "What do you mean undefinable?"

"Like she was hiding something from me through the Force," Jacen answered.

Now Ben looked concerned. "Are you saying she's Force-sensitive?"

Jacen nodded. "I figured you didn't notice. I didn't out her right then because I didn't want to make assumptions, but there was something not quite right about her."

"What are you implying?" Ben asked. "That she might be a... a... a Sith or something?" The very idea obviously offended him.

"Again, I didn't want to make any assumptions," Jacen stated. "But it was obvious that she was having a negative influence on you, Ben. I don't know what it is, but your father and I both intend to find out."

"Jacen suggested that we go right to Vestara's place ourselves," Luke said. "But I ultimately decided that it would be best if you come with us."

Ben still appeared to be reeling from the possibility that Vestara was hiding her Force-sensitivity from him. So it took him a few moments before resolve returned to his expression and he said, "If you meet her and you find there's nothing wrong, will you leave her alone?"

"If she's not responsible for your attitude, Ben," Jacen said, "I have no intention of ever chopping her door down again."

"If all Vestara is is someone minding her own business," Luke said, "then all we have to worry about is the rot inside you that Jacen's been sensing."

"Rot?" Ben asked. "What do you mean rot?"

"It feels as if your being is withering from the inside, Ben," Jacen explained. "You have hate, you have anger. If you haven't been feeling it gnaw at your soul, then I don't know what you've been feeling."

"Jacen, you don't know what you're talking about," Ben said defensively. "There's no 'rot' in me. You better check your Force-senses."

"No, I sense it, too, Ben," Luke said. "When we're finished with Vestara, whatever comes of it, I'll take you back to Shedu Maad, Ben. I sense that you need help. Tekli has been shifting her focus from medical matters to that of the spiritual; I foresee her becoming a Master before the end of the year. Perhaps she can help you."

"I... I don't have any kinda rot," Ben said, disbelief permeating his entire being now. "I don't know what you're talking about, Jacen."

"I think you do," Jacen replied firmly.

"No, you don't. If anyone's got any rot, it's you!"

"What are you talking about?" Jacen asked.

"Jacen, I think it's obvious that Ben's in denial," Luke chimed in. He returned his attention to his son. "Ben, please. There's something wrong with you. We wanna help."

"Dad, I don't need any help, I'm fine."

"Ben..."

"I said I'm fine." His tone was obviously wavering.

"I heard what you said, but what you're saying isn't matching up with-"

"I don't need any help!" Ben yelled. "Not from either of you! And you should both leave Ves alone!"

Both Luke and Jacen looked taken aback by Ben's outburst.

Silence permeated the three of them again before Ben collected himself and said, "I... I'm sorry, Dad. Jacen. I don't know what came over me."

Luke held up a hand to forestall any further excuses. "Just take us to Vestara, Ben."

"Yes, of course," Ben said in a quiescent tone.

Less than half an hour later, the three of them stopped by Vestara's apartment and Ben knocked on the door.

"Hey, Ves, you home?" he asked.

"Can you sense her inside, Jacen?" Luke asked.

"No," Jacen replied after a moment. "And, keep in mind, Uncle Luke, even when her Force-presence was unclear when she and I were talking, I could at least sense she was there. She's completely absent now."

"Then I suggest we wait until she returns home," Luke said.

"That won't be necessary," an elderly feminine voice said.

The three Jedi looked off to the right and saw a woman who looked like she was in her eighties—all hints of typical Hapan beauty gone now, with no attempt to hide her age, either—holding a piece of folded flimsiplast in one hand and a cane in the other.

She hobbled over to Jacen and the Skywalkers. "The girl who lived in that apartment, she had to leave earlier today. She gave me this letter in exchange for twenty credits and told me to give it to you when next you stopped by, young man."

The woman gave Ben the flimsiplast, turned around, and headed back to where she came from.

None of the three Jedi paid her any further mind as Ben opened up the flimsiplast. But before he started to read it, he looked over to his father and cousin, who also seemed interested in what was written there.

"Can I at least read this by myself first before you look it over?" Ben asked in a not-quite-rude way. "It could have something... I'd rather you not read."

Both Luke and Jacen exchanged glances before they looked back at the younger man.

"Good idea," both men said simultaneously.

"Thank you," Ben said before he stepped away from his father and cousin.

He then read:

**Ben,**

**I'm sorry I couldn't leave a call on your frequency back at the Palace. But something came up; my parents came home early today and told me I have to go with them right away. I only have enough time to write this note to you before I leave.**

**I don't know when I'll come back, or if I'll come back. I'm also sorry that I never told you anything substantial about myself; but that's what I liked about you. You didn't ask too many questions; you just loved me like I loved you. And I still do. Never forget that.**

**-Vestara**

Ben gritted his teeth as tears formed in his eyes. He then crumpled the flimsiplast and threw it over his shoulder before he started to run down the corridor from where he, Luke, and Jacen came from.

"Ben, wait!" Luke called out as he went after his son.

Jacen was then left alone; he didn't join his uncle in the chase for Ben. Instead, he walked over to the crumpled letter and picked it up to read it.

When he was finished, his eyes narrowed.

There was something not quite right about that last sentence.

"Never forget that," Jacen said aloud. For some reason, there was something... oddly manipulative about that.

As if she didn't want him to move on.

. . .

"Jacen Solo, you say?" Sith Saber Odrok Degron said beside Vestara. He, a dark-skinned human Sith Saber in his early thirties, was piloting the Hapan cargo ship away from Hapes while she was seated in the copilot seat. "You think he figured you out?"

"I don't think so," Vestata replied. "But he was clearly suspicious; it took everything in my power to hide my connection to the dark side. And I think he still found that I had a connection to the Force. Moreover, he made it clear that he would call Ben's father."

"Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker himself," Degron said with a tone that made it sound as if he were impressed. "You were quite ambitious in... getting involved with his son. I wonder what you would have done if I hadn't picked you up at the last minute; how long do you think you could have stood up to him in a lightsaber duel?"

"No longer than if I were to challenge Grand Lord Vol himself, I imagine," Vestara replied as they finally made it out of Hapes's atmosphere and into space.

"Still," Degron continued as he started to input the hyperspace coordinates to leave the system, "I could only imagine the conflict on young Ben's face if he found out who you really were. How he'd react if his father were to kill you."

"The Jedi aren't like us, Saber Degron," Vestara replied. "They won't kill you just because you're on the opposite side of the Force."

"Not immediately, anyway," Degron said, not taking the rest of his concentration from inputting the coordinates. "They just wait for you to make the first move."

"Which we tend to do," Vestara said evenly.

Now Degron looked at her. "We're Sith, Tyro Khai. Of course we make the first move. That's how we'll win against the Jedi."

"Of course," Vestara replied in a deadpan tone.

Degron's eyes narrowed. "Do you have doubts, Tyro Khai, of our cause?"

"No, no, I don't," she said, this time with a defensive tone. "Not at all, Saber Degron."

After a moment, he said, "Good. You keep it that way, Tyro." He returned his attention back to his controls. Moments later, they were in hyperspace.


	10. Chapter 9

"Ben! Ben, wait!" Luke called as he chased after his son along the sidewalk that led away from Vestara's apartment.

Before Luke could catch up to his son, the latter made it to a crosswalk while there was still a red light in front of him; obviously, in his emotional state, Ben didn't care about whether or not he could cross the street.

However, just a split second before Ben would have been run over by a landspeeder coming in from his left, Luke used the Force to pull his son back to the sidewalk, where Ben collapsed to his back. As if by instinct, the teenager turned prone to the ground and hid his face there while his body was wracked by sobs.

When Luke finally arrived to his son's side, he bent down and gingerly placed his natural hand on Ben's shoulder. The teenager, without hesitation, shooed his father's attempt at a comforting touch away while still crying upon the pavement.

"Ben, come on," Luke said as gently as he could. He didn't even care that he and his son were attracting attention from passersby; he just wanted to help Ben the best he could, and the pavement of Ta'a Chume'Dan wasn't exactly an ideal location for that. "Let's get you back to the Palace. We can-"

"It's all Jacen's fault!" Ben screamed as he looked up to his father. His face was already red from the crying. "If he hadn't come along, Ves and I would have been happy!"

Luke looked confused. "She left because of Jacen?"

"Just leave me alone!" Ben said as he stood up and headed back to where he was originally running. This time, there was a green light, so there was no threat (at least from this crosswalk) that he would have been run over while being distracted by his emotions.

"Ben!" Luke called out again. He proceeded to resume his chase.

But by the time Ben made it to the next crosswalk, he looked back at his father for a moment before leaping up and forward onto the roof of a passing hoverbus. He then leaped off of it to land on the sidewalk across the street.

Seconds behind his son, Luke leaped over the tops of three passing speeders before finally making it to the same sidewalk that Ben landed upon. But once he did, he looked around, finding no sign of the teenager; Luke couldn't even sense his Force-presence with a passive scan.

He was about to initiate a more thorough Force-scan of his son that would break through all of his defensive barriers when Jacen's voice said from behind him, "Let him be. For now, anyway."

Luke turned around to appraise his nephew with a questioning glare. "Let him be? He was so distracted he was nearly run over by a speeder. If I hadn't used the Force to pull him back-"

"If he's actively hiding his Force-presence from us, Uncle Luke," Jacen interrupted, "it means he's not only making more of an effort to be left alone, he's probably more likely to look left and right before crossing the street."

"Or it means he could be even more distracted if he's actively hiding himself from us," Luke countered. "Jacen, you brought me here to help you help Ben; now's not the time to give him his privacy when he can get himself killed out here!"

"Quite frankly, Uncle Luke, I think you're the one who's getting distracted right now," Jacen said. "You're right to worry about Ben, but not in the way that you probably should."

"What do you mean?"

Jacen held up the piece of flimsiplast that Ben was given before he ran away from Vestara's apartment. "Take a look at this," Jacen said as he gave his uncle the sheet.

When Luke was done reading it, he looked back up at Jacen and opened his mouth to say something before a thought stopped him. Then he reread the note and his brows furrowed at it suggested.

"If she really cared about him," Luke said, "she would have told him to move on. But she didn't; and, somehow, I don't think that it's because she was running out of time to write this. Or because she really cared about him. She's deliberately manipulating Ben with that last sentence; making sure that he can't move on."

Jacen nodded. "There's something more going on with that girl, Uncle Luke. But Ben needs some time, and we can't just tell him about this manipulation to him right away."

"Why not?"

"Given his current frame of mind," Jacen said, "he'd probably just dismiss it out of hand. He could definitely tell us we're reading into this manipulation thing when it might just be an innocent goodbye note. Either way, we have to let him have his space; but at the same time, we gotta make sure Vestara makes no further contact with him."

Jacen then walked past Luke to make his way back to the Fountain Palace. Luke stayed in place for a few seconds before he called out, "Jacen?"

"Yeah?" Jacen looked back to address his uncle.

"Do you think Vestara might be a Sith?"

"I hope not. If that's the case, Ben might be in more trouble than we think."

. . .

Ben returned to the Fountain Palace minutes ahead of Luke and Jacen. And there, as he rushed to his bedroom, tears still streaming from his eyes, a passing handmaiden asked, "Ben Skywalker?"

He didn't stop; he didn't care. He just wanted to be alone. No one else was worth talking to other than-

"Vestara sent me."

That stopped Ben dead in his tracks. He looked back in surprise. "What?"

The handmaiden approached him with another piece of flimsiplast and gave it to him. She said nothing more before she turned away and resumed her course down the corridor.

Ben opened up the note without hesitation and read it.

**Ben,**

**Burn this after you read it. Go to the Fountain Palace's hangar bay. You'll meet a woman there; she's waiting for you. She's scheduled to leave at 3 p.m. today. If you don't leave with her by then, you'll never see me again.**

**-Vestara**

Ben looked at his chronometer. He only had five minutes to get to the Palace's hangar bay. Quickly, he unhooked his lightsaber from his belt, activated it, and set the note upon it; it burned away into smoke. Then he deactivated his weapon, replaced it upon his belt, and hurried for the hangar.

He made it in two minutes. The woman waiting for him said nothing to him, nor he to her, as she led him into her cargo ship. They were out into the air in no time, and right before Luke and Jacen set foot in the Palace again.

It was too late for anyone in the Palace to notify Hapes Orbital Control of their departure before the cargo ship jumped into hyperspace.

. . .

Down in the Fountain Palace's interrogation room, the handmaiden who gave Ben that last note, Freika, had been sat down to view the holofootage of her interaction with the runaway teenage Jedi.

When the footage ended, the interrogator, Chief of Security Rejay Deeho, asked from the opposite side of the desk from Freika, "How could you make such a stupid mistake? You knew the holocams were there."

Freika looked shocked and scared. "What did I do wrong? All that girl asked me to do was just give Jedi Skywalker that note. And I thought, what would be the harm in it?"

"For a handmaiden who serves directly under the Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium," Deeho said evenly, "you seem overly naive about potential security threats. For all you knew, that note was laced with a dormant explosive compound that could have blown up the Fountain Palace and assassinated our Queen Mother. The fact that it wasn't doesn't excuse your carelessness and outright idiocy."

"Well, I'm sorry, I'm still new to this!" Freika cried. "I didn't know that I had to make sure a note didn't have an explosive compound or whatever!"

"Your action will be up for review," Deeho said. "So unless the Queen Mother herself allows you to continue to serve in this Palace, I would say that the likelihood of your services continuing here are extremely remote."

"Oh, no, please, I need this job to support my family!"

"We all do; but that's no excuse to potentially endanger the Queen Mother."

"Look, can't I get a refresher course on security matters? I promise I won't make the same mistake again!" Freika cried.

Before Deeho could say anything in response, the interrogation chamber's door opened and Jacen Solo walked in.

"Can I take over from here, Chief Deeho?" the Jedi asked.

"By all means."

After Deeho vacated her seat and left the room, Jacen filled in for her.

"Now, Freika," Jacen said, "I know you're telling the truth. I could sense it within your Force-presence. I could sense that you genuinely care for your family and that you had no idea of any potential security risks of bringing that note into this Palace; you made a mistake, and luckily for you, it wasn't a fatal one. So that means you have a higher chance of continuing your services here than Chief Deeho lets on; after all, as the adoptive father to the Queen Mother, I have pull with her. So I can convince her that you're still worthy of serving directly under her.

"But first, you have to tell me this: who was that girl who gave you the note to pass onto Ben? When and where did you meet her? And how did she know you?"

Freika swallowed nervously before she began. "Well, I met her about a month ago, while I was in Ta'a Chume'Dan, you know, shopping for food. She spoke to me first, mistaking me for a friend of hers. I told her I didn't know who she was, she was mistaking me for someone else. She then asked if I was a handmaiden to Her Majesty."

"What made her think that?" Jacen asked. "Were you wearing anything that might give that away?"

Freika shook her head vehemently. "No, I wasn't. I wore plain civilian Hapan clothing, as ordered whenever I was in the city. And I denied working for the Queen Mother. But somehow, I don't know how, I swear it on my life, but she said that I was lying. She knew that I worked for Her Majesty."

"What did you do afterward?"

"Nothing. Actually, she ended the conversation then and there and left the shop, didn't even buy anything. And I didn't even see her again until just this morning when she told me to give your cousin that note."

"So why were you so compliant?" Jacen asked.

"I... I..." Freika looked away as she tried collecting her thoughts. "I can't remember. Wait."

"What?"

"I do remember something," the handmaiden said. "She... waved her hand in front of me, telling me to give the note. I said I'd do it. I still don't know why I did it."

Now Jacen looked worried. He said nothing more to Freika before he stood up and left the room. He met Luke and Deeho in the room behind the two-way mirror that was facing the interrogation room.

"We have to leave, Uncle Luke," Jacen said with an urgent tone. "We have to find Ben. And wherever he is, Vestara might be there, too."

"Where do we start?" Luke asked, his concern mirroring Jacen's.

"Obviously, with the last known coordinates of that cargo ship that took Ben. Chief Deeho, get Orbital Control to give the Palace that ship's hyperspace coordinates and transmit them to the _Jade Shadow_."

"Right away, Jedi Solo," Deeho replied. "But what about Freika?"

"Oh. Um, tell the Queen Mother about this incident, but also tell her that I said that Freika shouldn't be fired because of it," Jacen said somewhat impatiently. "Have her suspended from duty with pay until Luke and I get Ben back."

"Very well."

"All right, Uncle Luke, let's go."


	11. Chapter 10

Mere hours before, in the cockpit of his ship, the _Slave I_, Boba Fett received a transmission from whom he believed to be Jagged Fel; the foot-long holographic representation of the Imperial Head of State looked exactly like him, and all of his inflections of mannerisms were consistent with what Fett had recognized from the man. So there was no reason why the bounty hunter didn't believe him to be who he appeared to be.

"Mandalore Fett," the hologram said, "you and your granddaughter must return to Hagamoor 3 right away. It's about the cure. My scientists may have discovered a breakthrough that you should see for yourself. How soon can you get here?"

Fett took a moment to himself as he looked at the _Slave I_'s current position in space and calculated how long it would take for his ship to reach Hagamoor 3.

"It should be a few hours, Head of State Fel," Fett replied. He held his tone steady; the prospect of a breakthrough with the cure to the nanovirus plaguing the world of Mandalore nearly made him want to jump for joy, even at his old age. "I'll contact Mirta and let her know to meet me there."

"That won't be necessary," Fel replied. "I've already contacted her myself. She's already on the way from a job that was just completed near Bakura."

"She didn't tell me," Fett said.

"I just told her a few minutes ago," Fel explained. "You'll arrive well ahead of her by a few hours."

Fett took a moment before he replied with, "Fine. But I won't visit the lab until after Mirta's arrived."

"Great, I'll see you there," Fel replied. He then signed off, leaving Fett to plot a jump to Hagamoor 3.

But before he did, he decided to contact Mirta.

"Jango-Vau-Skirata-One-One-Three-Eight," was the first thing she said as soon as her holographic representation appeared before him; that was the code that verified her identity. No one else knew that code, not even Mirta's own husband Ghes Orade; Fett was the only other person in the galaxy who could have known that code. Moreover, Mirta wasn't wearing her helmet, which only made it more likely that it was her; if the transmission was faked, the impostor would have decided to leave the helmet on so there would be less work for the holoprojector.

"Canderous-Jaing-Etain-Eight-Four-Seven-Two," was Fett's reply. Again, only he and Mirta knew the code that verified his own identity.

"I'm on my way from Bakura right now," Mirta confirmed. "You?"

"I'll be five hours ahead of you," Fett stated. "See you there."

Hours later, the _Slave I_ dropped out of hyperspace in the Antemeridian system. Hagamoor 3's Orbital Control cleared Fett's ship for approach, and the bounty hunter piloted the _Slave_ _I_ down through the atmosphere for another visit of the research station.

Fett docked his ship without any trouble in the station's hangar bay, and when the _Slave I_ had been powered down, he sat in place, looking at his ship's chronometer for when Mirta would arrive.

A few minutes later, the gangways of all the Imperial ships that were docked around the _Slave I_ opened up and several jetpacked Mandalorians poured out from each of them. They all began assaulting the legendary Firespray-31 with various blasterfire, rockets, grenades, and bouts of yellow-orange heat from their flamethrowers.

And while Fett had coated the _Slave I_ with near-indestructible _beskar_, he knew that if he didn't get his ship's defenses online again soon, as he was trying to now, he would be a dead duck.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for the Firespray's defensive guns to begin firing upon the Mandos. And while the mercs' own _beskar_ armor withstood the vaporizing effects, the sheer concussive force penetrated their armor's defensive capabilities and practically turned their owners' insides into jelly, killing them and dropping them to the deck. Naturally, the flying Mandalorians flew much more defensive flight paths around the hangar bay even as they kept up their respective volleys upon the _Slave I_.

And now, even as Fett started to get his ship powered up again and his vessel's defensive lasers were set to automatic to take out the assaulting Mandos, he wondered how the hell he was lured into this trap. How had his scanners not picked up any lifesigns when he arrived? Did his attackers set up some kind of dampening field around the Imperial ships to mask their lifesigns? Was it part of their armor? If that was the case, how was he not notified of this as their Mandalore?

Could they be working for Belok Rhal?

The suddenness of that thought distracted him for a brief but all too critical moment before a multitude of simultaneous grenade explosions blew open the _Slave I_'s cockpit. The blast ripped the pilot seat from where it was bolted down, and Fett himself was blown back out of the chair to crash through the door that led further back into the ship.

And before he had time to recover, with his ears still ringing and his body wracked with pain, a thin metallic cable quickly wrapped itself around his right ankle and abruptly pulled him back through the damaged cockpit so that he could soar out above the hangar bay's deck. When he looked up, with his ears still ringing, he saw Belok Rhal, fully armed, armored, and helmeted, as the one who was flying around, his right gauntlet having fired the cable that wrapped itself around Fett's ankle.

Fett brought out his blaster to fire at Rhal; even though he knew that would do little to no damage to his _beskar_ armor, Fett hoped that the physical forces of the laser shots could at least knock Rhal off-course and hopefully plow him against a wall. So the Mandalore fired away upon the traitor, and, indeed, the shots were beginning to send Rhal into wild tumbles in the air; with any luck, Fett might be able to free himself from this, after all.

But Rhal took that to his own advantage, and instead slammed Fett into a wall instead. Rhal then allowed his Mandalore to collapse to the deck below before allowing the cable that he attached to his ankle to unwrap itself and retract into his gauntlet. Fett's blaster, meanwhile, clattered well away from his grasp, several meters from where he crashed.

Fett's hearing had still yet to recover, yet he managed to push himself to his feet as the surviving Mandalorians around him dropped to the deck on their feet, their jetpacks deactivated. Rhal was the last to land, and he was only a few feet from Fett; it was obvious, at that point, that the rest of Rhal's mercs wouldn't interfere in what would come next.

Fett made the first move by striking out his vibroblade toward a weak spot near Rhal's neck. But Rhal parried the attack with his own vibroblade before swinging his opposite arm for Fett's head. Fett ducked beneath the attack and then tackled Rhal to the deck, where he made yet another vibroblade strike for Rhal's neck. Rhal then rolled Fett onto his back before his blade could penetrate anything, and then the treacherous Mando pile-drove an elbow down upon Fett's chestplate.

Fett barely felt the blow thanks to his own _beskar_, and that allowed him to make yet another strike at Rhal's neck. The latter managed to duck his head quickly enough so that the vibroblade refracted off of his helmet instead, and then Rhal grabbed at Fett's blade-wielding hand and pounded it to the deck; that was all it took for the vibroblade to clatter away from Fett's grip. Fett managed to get a leg out from beneath Rhal's weight and shove-kicked him off; as Rhal collapsed to his back, Fett leaped for his vibroblade.

But just as Fett landed for the blade, Rhal had fired a mini-rocket from his left gauntlet. It struck about a meter from where Fett landed, which sent the Mando flying away from his melee weapon.

When Fett landed, he found himself looking right at the blaster that had clattered from him when he had hit the wall while he was in flight with Rhal. He grabbed the gun and rolled to his back to fire the weapon as Rhal charged in toward him. The treacherous merc only flinched from the lasers but was otherwise unimpeded as he made it to Fett, where he kicked the blaster out of his hand. Fett swiped the legs out from his opponent, once again getting him to his back.

But when Fett stood up again, ready to make a run for his blaster, Rhal, still on his back, fired yet another mini-rocket at point-blank range for Fett's chestplate.

The blow not only knocked Fett off his feet and back against the wall behind him, but it also knocked him unconscious before he hit the deck.

With that, Rhal had won the fight before he even stood back up to look over his fallen opponent.

"Strip him," he demanded from two of his goons. "Make sure he has nothing to free himself."

Minutes later, all of the Imperial ships that Rhal's men and women confiscated rose away from the hangar bay and into Hagamoor 3's skies, where they waited for two minutes. By the end of those two minutes, several Mandalorian ships dropped out of hyperspace and zoomed down through the atmosphere to join their apparent Imperial brothers and sisters.

Then, all of the ships, Imperial and Mandalorian alike, fired down upon the facility, completely reducing it to a smoking ruin.

When that was done, all of the ships turned away, left Hagamoor 3's atmosphere, and plotted a unified jump back to the world of Mandalore.

But before they actually jumped, a few of the Imperial shuttles, which were all now on autopilot, each had several jetpacked Mandos fly away from their airlocks The shuttles' automated course took them on a collision course with the Antemeridian system's star; and all of them had the bodies of the Imperials from Hagamoor 3's research facility, unarmored stormtroopers and scientists alike. They all arrived near the star in a few minutes, where they burned away into their constituent atoms.

. . .

"What happened here?" Jag asked the Imperial inspector next to him.

Before him, Inspector Velias, and Jaina, a team of more than a hundred investigators searched through the ruins of the nanovirus research facility, attempting to find anything that could explain what happened here. And just like Jag, Jaina, and Velias, they all wore environmental suits to protect themselves from Hagamoor 3's inhospitable atmosphere.

"An attack, Head of State Fel," Velias answered. "Unfortunately, we haven't been able to determine who the attackers were yet."

"Nothing from Orbital Control?" Jaina asked.

"Everyone aboard Orbital Control was found dead early this morning," Velias answered. "And all records were thoroughly scrubbed clean from the systems."

"Whoever did this was obviously efficient," Jag observed.

"But who'd wanna destroy all this, and why?" Jaina asked.

"That's what we're trying to find out, ma'am," Velias replied evenly. "The only lead we have is the possibility that this was done by traitors in the Remnant."

"What makes you say that, Inspector?" Jag asked.

"All of the ships that were stationed here are gone," Velias explained. "And I don't mean that they were destroyed with the facility. I mean they weren't here in the destruction; they must have left beforehand."

"What about everyone who worked here?" Jaina asked. "Any sign of them?"

Velias shook his head. "None. Although we did find select traces of DNA from-"

Jaina's commlink beeped. "Excuse me," she said as she stepped away from Jag and Velias.

When she answered it, a two-inch version of Jedi Master Kyp Durron appeared before her.

"Master Durron, what is it?" Jaina asked curtly.

"Jaina, you're gonna need to have a look at the news," Kyp replied in a grave tone.

While still holding her commlink in one hand, Jaina brought out her datapad and set it up to connect to the HoloNet. When she got to the news, she nearly dropped both devices because of what was on the news.

She saw footage of stormtroopers—Imperial Remnant stormtroopers—discharge a beaten and bruised Boba Fett, sans armor, from the gangway of an Imperial shuttle... onto the surface of the world of Mandalore!

In mere seconds, Fett was reduced to a pile of goop as the Imperial shuttle blasted away from the surface.

The footage was then replaced by the helmeted personage of Mirta Gev making a formal declaration at the very spot where her grandfather died.

"For the death of our Mandalore, and my grandfather, Boba Fett, I, Mirta Gev, declare that we, the nation of Mandalore, shall go to war with the Imperial Remnant!"


	12. Chapter 11

"We're almost there," the pilot said with an indifferent tone.

Those were the first words that the woman said to Ben since he boarded her cargo ship back on Hapes about two days before. But the young Jedi Knight barely took notice of that, as what her words conveyed meant more to him than anything else in the galaxy.

He was going to see Vestara again; and in his mind, the seconds separating him from where she was seemed to stretch out forever. He felt like he could practically break out of his harness from the copilot seat, jump out through the forward viewport, and allow himself to ride the rest of the way through hyperspace for Vestara; he almost forgot that his body would have been de-atomized in the process..

When the Hapan cargo shuttle finally dropped out of hyperspace, it arrived several thousand kilometers away from a beautiful, lush world.

For an all-too brief moment, Ben allowed both his excitement at seeing Vestara again and the pleasantness of the view to override his Force-senses.

But when his Force-senses kicked in, they were far too late at warning him of the dangers posed by this planet... and of the woman beside him.

Just as Ben felt an immeasurable wave of dark side energy overwhelm him, the woman promptly injected him in the side of the neck with some kind of needle. He lost consciousness almost instantly; he didn't even have time to struggle out of his safety harness before the world became completely black.

. . .

"What the hell did you think you were doing?!" Tahiri nearly screamed at Jag after she barged into his office.

He looked up at her from his datapad with an annoyed, tired look. "Please don't tell me you believe that I actually had Boba Fett killed and started a war with the Mandalorians."

Tahiri stopped in her tracks and looked at him in askance. "What?"

Now it was Jag's turn to look confused. "You didn't see that rabble that I'm allowing outside? I thought you knew."

Jag was referring to the protest by dozens of Imperial citizens going on right outside the Imperial Capital Building of Bastion, all of whom were cordoned off from entering by several armed stormtroopers. Tahiri had spotted the crowd below before her transport shuttle had docked in the Capital Building's hangar bay, but she didn't think much of them because of her preoccupation with the Mandalorian "protector" that Jag assigned to her behind her back.

"Okay, you first," Tahiri said. "What's this about Boba Fett being dead and you going to war with the Mandalorians? I've kinda been outta the loop since my trip back from Kashyyyk."

Jag pressed a few buttons on his datapad and slid it across the surface to Tahiri. "See for yourself; it's been all over the news in the GA, the Remnant, and even the Hapes Consortium."

Tahiri picked up the 'pad, and after a few minutes, she was pretty much caught up.

"Someone set you up," Tahiri concluded as she returned the 'pad to Jag.

"I know that, Tahiri," Jag said with an impatient tone. "The question is, who did it?"

Tahiri shrugged. "Might be Belok Rhal. It's well-known he has even less love for the Jedi than even Boba Fett. Perhaps he tricked Gev into thinking that your people really did assassinate her grandfather."

"Possible, even likely. But we have no concrete proof of that, Tahiri; and even if we did, Mirta Gev isn't willing to talk to me. I tried contacting her, but I received no response. I tried other channels; no luck. The Mandalorian nation is silent on this, Tahiri; they really mean war. Jaina went out to see if she could talk some sense to her, show her the evidence of the destruction of the nanovirus research facility on Hagamoor 3. But my wife even admits it'll be difficult to convince Mirta when she won't even respond to the broadcasts I put out on the Remnant's official news channels about the facility."

"Gev might think it's a lie, a trick, by your propaganda machine to lull her into a sense of false security," Tahiri suggested, "so you could do to her what you did to her grandfather."

"Which, of course, I didn't, but Mirta won't believe that," Jag pointed out. "But, hopefully, if we can tie Rhal to the destruction of the nanovirus facility, maybe we can convince Mirta that my government had nothing to do with her grandpa's death."

"Then maybe I can help you get some evidence on Rhal," Tahiri replied. "Perhaps that Mando you hired to tail me will still be on your payroll after this; maybe he's still willing to listen. Hell, he might even be the last Mando to work for the Imperial Remnant after Gev's declaration of war."

Jag froze. "Oh, I see you met him. I was hoping you'd never have to; that's what you wanted to talk to me about?."

"How long did you think you could keep that a secret from me?" Tahiri asked. "Did you really think I'd never find out?"

"Do we have to talk about this now?" Jag asked. "I have to coordinate efforts with about four different Admirals on fleet strategies and deployments for any impending Mandalorian invasions. So could you please spare me-"

"Contact him," Tahiri interrupted.

"What?"

"Tell him to come up and in here," Tahiri elaborated. "Maybe he can help us."

Jag raised an eyebrow. "Do you have short-term memory loss now, Tahiri? The new leader of the Mandalorians just declared war on my government. You really think any of my stormtroopers or officers are gonna let a 'buckethead' in here even if I told them to let him pass? They'd think I was stupidly risking an assassination attempt; they may even be right! After all, I haven't contacted him since I came back from Hagamoor 3 yesterday, so maybe he'll try to take the chance to kill me."

"I'll be standing right here," Tahiri pointed out. "If he tries anything stupid, I can handle him; a jetpack can't save him from falling out that window if my lightsaber destroys it." She indicated the view of Bastion's capital city behind Jag with a nod. "And even if his _beskar_ allowed him to survive the fall, he's not gonna be getting back up soon anyway."

Jag let a moment pass between him and Tahiri before he brought up his personal commlink and input a series of numbers. When he received an answer from a familiar voice asking, "Yeah?" Jag said, "Come to my office now."

It took at least a few more minutes of Jag using that commlink some more to convince quite a number of officers to let a yellow-striped Mandalorian enter the Capital Building unimpeded. But finally, the calls ended, and two minutes after that, Tahiri's "protector" entered the office.

Jag said, "You heard about-"

"I did," the merc interrupted. "And as long as you're still willing to pay me, I don't care."

"Good," Jag replied evenly. "Then I have a new assignment for you. This time, that woman is going to be your superior. Your assignment is to go out into the galaxy; I don't care where you go, I don't care how long it takes. What I want you to do is find me some evidence—nothing fabricated, I want legitimate evidence—that Belok Rhal is behind Boba Fett's death and is using Mirta Gev as a puppet to declare war on the Imperial Remnant."

A few seconds passed before the Mando finally said, "Okay."

Tahiri raised an eyebrow in the merc's direction; he certainly didn't ask many, or any, questions.

"Tahiri, what are you standing around here for?" Jag asked. "Go!"


	13. Chapter 12

When Ben awakened, he found himself in a clean, well-ordered bedroom with no noticeable furnishings that gave it any personality. However, there were two aspects of the room that caught his attention: the fact that he was bound by wrists and ankles to the frame of a bed, and the teenage girl leering over him from his left.

Vestara.

"Hi, Ben," she said with the same smile she gave him whenever she greeted him by the door to her apartment. "I was thinking we should spice up our sex life; try some BDSM." She rattled the chain by his left wrist with a simple gesture of her hand... a Force-gesture, that was. "What do you think?"

Whatever positive feelings that Ben had for Ves were quickly evaporating as the gravity of his situation sank in. The overwhelming feeling of the dark side of the Force felt caustic to Ben now; it was everywhere around him, like it was when he was on Ziost years ago, and it even came from... from...

"Yes, Ben," Ves confirmed with a nod. Her smile never floundered. "I'm a Sith."

With those three words, Ben's heart felt as if it had been snapped in two. His body slumped into the bed; he couldn't even muster up enough energy to try to break free.

"You... you lied to me," he said. Tears were now forming in his eyes. "You never really cared about me. You only used me to get close to me and... and..."

"And what, Ben?" Ves asked. "What do you think I did? Come now, if I wanted to get close to you, surely, that means I care about you, hmm?"

Ben's thoughts were completely jumbled. His emotions roiled within his being like a Bespin hurricane when the environmental controls were malfunctioning. Against the revelation of Ves's true nature and the caustic dark side feeling that pervaded this planet, it was Ben's continued feelings for Ves that prompted him to turn his head away from her and shut his eyes instead of offering any resistance.

But that didn't stop the tears from flowing down his face.

"Aww, Ben, don't try to avoid me," Ves said as she grabbed one hand beneath his chin and turned his head back to her. With her other hand, she forced his eyes open; the tears flowed much more freely now as he started to sob. "You can't avoid me now; not in my home. Not on my homeworld."

"Why, Ves? Why did you lie to me?" His shoulders started to shake and his breath was starting to catch.

Ves tilted her head to her right slightly and gave him a look as if he were an adorably dumb toddler. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear the first time, Ben. I didn't lie to you." She grasped both hands on either side of his head, pulling him in closer to her face. "I do love you. But if I told you I was a Sith, you never would have treated me the way you did when we first met."

Amidst the turmoil of his emotions, Ben's mind took him elsewhere, as if it were acting on instinct to take him back to a happier point in his life, to get him away from the pain he was in now. And the place his mind took him to was the moment he and Vestara met two months before on Hapes.

_"Nice vintage," a sultry, feminine voice said from off to his left._

_Even in his state of inebriation, Ben nearly jumped from where he sat before his head turned left to the new arrival on the roof._

_The girl, who appeared to be about Ben's age, held her hands up defensively and stopped in her tracks. But her body language didn't match her playful smile._

_"H-how'd you get up here?" he asked._

_"Same way you did, I guess," she replied. "I took the ladder up. Now, I'll t__ell you what. I won't tell anyone if you lend me a sip of that wine."_

_For a moment, Ben wasn't quite sure what she was talking about; not only was his current drunkenness keeping him from thinking too clearly, but he was also distracted by the girl's beauty. Her skin was a nice shade of pale, her full lips were applied with an appealing dark red stroke of lipstick, her hair was as dark as a midnight here on Hapes, and her black leather jumpsuit left little to the imagination._

_"Well?" the girl asked. "Is it a deal or do I have to let the local authorities know that a minor is drinking some booze on the top of the wine store that he pilfered from?"_

_It was that threat, addressed though it may have been in a jovial tone, that, at least temporarily, snapped Ben out of his hormonal, drunken musings to remember where he was. Indeed, he was on the roof of the building of a wine store and was drinking a bottle of one of that store's products; and he was still only five years from the legal drinking age. And on top of that, there were about two empty bottles near his feet and a bag of three full bottles to his right, which were out of the girl's sight. _

_"Oh, uh, yes, yes," Ben said hurriedly. "You can have a sip, I mean. And I didn't pilfer the booze; I bought it. With money, of course."_

_The girl giggled as she walked over to him and sat down to his left. Ben handed her the bottle and she didn't take a sip so much as a sizable gulp. Thankfully, there was still so much left for Ben to drink before he had to move onto the next bottle._

_"So, outta curiosity, how'd you manage to buy any wine, much less this much, without the clerk asking for I.D.?" the girl asked. She even casually waved to the bag at Ben's other side._

_Ben looked at her. "If I don't tell you, you gonna try to tell on me?"_

_"I haven't had enough booze to be as drunk as you yet," she pointed out, her tone still playful. "Maybe I can pass myself off as sober still."_

_"They might smell the alcohol on your breath," Ben pointed out, his voice now playful, too._

_"I might risk it," she said. Her smile widened._

_So did Ben's. "Well, if you really wanna know, it's because... I'm a Jedi."_

_"A Jedi? Really? So does that mean you used a mind-trick or something like that to convince the wine store's proprietor to let you buy her booze?"_

_Ben nodded mock-guiltily. "I even used the Force to fuzzy up her cameras so she won't be able to pin it on me."_

_"Not very Jedi-y of you," the girl said. "Maybe I need another sip if you wanna buy my silence."_

_Ben returned her the bottle, from which she downed the rest of the contents in an instant before throwing it with the other two empty receptacles. Ben, without hesitation, brought out another bottle from the bag, opened it up, and instantly gave it to the girl. She took in yet another gulp before giving it back to him._

_"Silence bought," she said. A hiccup soon followed._

_Ben couldn't help but giggle at that. "Uh-oh. I think you need to hold your breath for about ten seconds."_

_"Oh, come on, that doesn't really work," she said._

_"No, it does, trust me."_

_"Please, don't try to sell me that," she said with a dismissive wave._

_"Just give it a try, it'll work."_

_"Well, if you insist."_

_The girl then inhaled a breath and promptly shut her mouth. As the seconds ticked by, Ben couldn't help but burst out laughing._

_His laughing caused her to burst out laughing, too, before the ten seconds were even up._

_"What's so funny?" she asked in between her guffawing._

_"You looked like a blowfish, is all," he replied._

_"I do _not_!" she exclaimed. But she was still laughing._

_"You did, you looked totally ridiculous!"_

_"No, you look ridiculous!"_

_"No, you!"_

_"No, you!"_

_Another hiccup followed from the girl. And Ben's raucous laughter was intensified._

_And after a moment, so did the girl's._

_When the laughter finally died down, and the girl made an actual effort to get rid of the hiccups by holding her breath for ten seconds (during which Ben actually managed to contain himself), they both looked at each other in a comfortable moment of silence._

_"My name's Vestara," she said. "Vestara Khai."_

_"Ben Skywalker. Want another drink?"_

_"I'd love one."_

_By the time they were done with all the bottles, they were embraced in a passionate kiss, with Vestara on top of Ben._

His mind flashed back to the present, and Ben found himself freed of the chains binding his wrists and ankles. Still, though, Ves leered over him.

"I reconsidered the BDSM," she said. "Maybe we should still take this slow."

Ben slowly sat up on the bed but didn't stand. Again, his emotions were in turmoil, and he didn't know what kind of expression he was levying upon Ves as he stared her down.

"Wh-wh-why did you... do that?" Ben asked. "I could... I could..."

"Try to escape?" Ves asked. "There's nowhere on this planet for you to escape, Ben. Even if you tried to leave, even if you found your lightsaber and actually had the gall to kill me, there'd be so many Sith here who could stop you. And I wouldn't be able to guarantee your safety even if I were still alive; so if you want to continue living, I suggest you stick with me and... enjoy our time together."

Normally, Ben would have been able to resist the temptation that someone like Vestara brought upon him. He was able to resist going to the dark side when Darth Caedus tortured him aboard his Star Destroyer, the _Anakin Solo_, and he was even able to resist Tahiri Veila's sexual advances near the end of the Second Galactic Civil War. And if Ben had been in his right mind, he would have even imagined that he could resist Vestara if he had known her to be a Sith from the beginning.

But because of everything she made him feel, the thought that she was even a true Sith was something that couldn't really sink into Ben's head. How could someone who brought him so much happiness, who brought him out of the dread and misery he felt when his cousin Jacen returned to his life, be an agent of evil?

No, Vestara wasn't evil. If she went by the label of Sith, then that was all it was to Ben now. A label. And not even the presence of the dark side all around him, which was now becoming so much less toxic by the minute, could change his mind about that.

"So what do you say, Ben?" Ves asked. "Shall we spend some more time together?"

Now Ben knew he was smiling as he had before when he first met her. "I'd love that."

Moments later, they made love; and all of Ben's fears about the dark side around him completely disappeared.

For now, as it had been then, it was just him and Vestara; no Jedi, no Sith, no light or dark sides of the Force. Just them, and them alone.


	14. Chapter 13

The first stop on the _Jade Shadow_'s search for Ben was the Hapan world of Andalia, home of the callously Jedi-hating Ducha Lorangal.

"I hope you have the fake transponder ready, Uncle Luke," Jacen said from the copilot seat.

"Oh, it's already generating a fake identity for the _Shadow_, Jacen," Luke said from the pilot seat as he and his nephew waited for Andalia's Orbital Control to contact them. "So don't worry."

"I'm not too worried about entering Andalia," Jacen said. "I'm worried about getting caught down there. Even Allana's influence won't be able to help us here."

"I haven't forgotten," Luke replied evenly. Although Lorangal tolerated, at best, having had three Force-sensitive women on the throne of Hapes, she made it very clear to Allana in one of their previous holocomm discussions that she would never allow any Jedi or any other Force-sensitive on her world.

And if any were caught, they would be hunted down and killed; and if the Queen Mother had a problem with that, she was more than welcome to address her concerns to her and conduct an official investigation into any and all disappearances of Jedi who just so happened to be on Andalia.

Thankfully, just as Allana had once told Jacen about all of this information, she also told him that, so far, there had been no reason to investigate Andalia; no Jedi had ever been there since before Allana's grandmother Tenenial Djo ruled the Consortium.

Jacen only hoped that neither he nor Luke would be the first Jedi during a Force-sensitive's rule of Hapes to die on Andalia.

It didn't take too long before the _Shadow_, under a false identity, was cleared through Orbital Control. With that, Luke piloted the ship down through Andalia's atmosphere and had it docked at the designated spaceport.

By the time Luke and Jacen disembarked, they had already been fitted with prosthetics that matched with the I.D. badges that they presented to customs. Luke had had his hair dyed black, his cheeks had been made to appear as if they had been raised, and he had green eyes in the guise of Kram Milla. Jacen, meanwhile, had his cheeks appeared lower, his hair was dyed a light red, and his eyes were a healthy shade of blue to match the identity of Nesjah Kleas. Naturally, both men wore plain civilian clothing instead of their traditional Jedi robes.

As for their lightsabers, which they both intended to have on their persons at all times, Luke and Jacen had them hidden within the folds of their trousers. And it took Luke's skill with projecting a Fallanassi illusion to trick both the agents who inspected their identities and the security cams into making it appear that neither he nor his disguised nephew had noticeable cylindrical bulges in the backs of their pants.

Once they cleared the spaceport and were out in the streets of Andalia's capital city of Pledos, Luke and Jacen walked side by side as they headed to the last known location of the cargo vessel that had taken Ben: an herbs-producing warehouse that was in walking distance from Pledos's spaceport.

During their walk, Jacen said, "Uncle Luke, I'm sorry."

"For what?" Luke looked genuinely confused.

"For not looking after Ben like I should have," Jacen answered.

"It wasn't your fault, Jacen," Luke replied evenly. "Ben made his own decisions. And it was clear he was actively disobeying you by being with that girl and not telling you or me about her. If anything, it's my fault for having forced him to go with you on the pretense of looking after Allana and helping Hapes recover from the Infestation. I'd thought that he would have moved past his hatred for Caedus and embraced you as his real cousin."

"So did I," Jacen said. "We should have given him more time. Time away from me, I mean."

"Maybe we should have," Luke agreed. "But what's done is done. And we can only hope that wherever Ben is, he's safe and we can take him back. That's all we can do now, so let's keep ourselves focused, Jacen."

"Yes, sir," Jacen said.

The two of them remained silent for several more steps before they both stopped in their tracks and seized up at the sudden feeling of dark side energy coming from nearby. It took both Luke and Jacen a moment to pinpoint the source of that energy to an alley across the street to their left.

And lurking over there, dressed similarly to the disguised Jedi, was a dark-skinned human male who was slightly younger than Jacen. He looked back at them with an arrogant smile and waved at them, as if he were greeting a pair of old friends.

"Uncle Luke," Jacen said without looking away from the man across the street, "what should we do?"

"I think it's only polite, Jacen," Luke replied, "to wave back." Indeed, he lifted up his cybernetic hand (which, of course, was fitted with prosthetic skin) and mirrored the mysterious man's wave.

Jacen followed suit; but like his uncle, he kept his guard up as the man approached them.

Once the fellow had crossed the street, he said, "Hey, guys? Wanna join me? There's a party goin' on over there." He pointed a thumb toward the alley from which he came.

Although the man's demeanor was polite and cheerful, his essence in the dark side of the Force was undeniable.

And it was clear from his presence that he was willing to risk an open confrontation that would expose all three of them in public as Force-users unless Luke and Jacen did as he "asked."

"If you insist," Luke said, mirroring the man's demeanor.

Both Jedi followed the dark sider back the way he came and entered the building off to their left through a side door. When they entered the dilapidated and abandoned warehouse and the door was closed behind them, Luke and Jacen's "friend" turned around and whatever politeness and cheerfulness they had in their outward expressions were completely gone.

"Who are you?" Luke asked sternly.

"Who I am matters to neither of you," the man said. "Only my role to you does. And I came here to give you directions."

Now Luke and Jacen looked confused.

"Directions?" Jacen asked.

"To find the young Jedi that you're obviously searching for," the dark sider elaborated.

Luke tilted his head inquisitively. "Why not just tell us where he is outright? Save us both the trouble."

"Or why not just give Ben back?" Jacen asked.

The dark sider crossed his arms across his chest before he spoke. "This isn't just about young Ben. This is also about Vestara Khai."

"We already know she's manipulated him into coming after he," Luke said. "And that still doesn't explain why you're helping us. Why should we trust anything you tell us when you're obviously a Sith?"

The dark sider's—the Sith's—nostrils flared before he answered. "Because Khai is in as much danger to falling to your pathetic light side as your son is to the dark side, Master Skywalker."

Luke and Jacen both looked taken aback.

"Explain," Jacen was the one to demand.

"The leader of my Order has approved of Khai keeping your cousin in her household," the Sith explained, "as part of a plan to seduce him to the dark side; quite literally, I might say. But after I rescued her from Hapes, when it was clear you were onto her, Solo, I sensed turmoil in her soul."

"So she's not as loyal of a lackey as she used to be," Jacen said.

"It seems as if my son is as positive an influence on her as she is a bad one on him," Luke observed.

"I wouldn't call your son a positive influence on Tyro Khai, Master Skywalker," the Sith replied with a sneer. "And Lord Vol has-"

"Wait, wait, who's Lord Vol?" Jacen asked.

The Sith froze as he realized the error in his slip of tongue. Then his expression became even more frustrated than before. "My leader," he admitted reluctantly.

Jacen grinned. "Thanks for the info."

The Sith looked angry. "Listen, I came here to try to make your path appear as plausible as it can be without implicating myself to my leaders. If you save your son, you also save Tyro Khai."

"Why is she so important to you?" Jacen asked.

"That's none of your concern."

"The Sith aren't exactly well-known for their compassion for others," Luke stated. "Not even for their own. So I hope you can excuse us our skepticism as to why you'd be willing to do this behind your Masters' backs."

"Well, well," the Sith said. "It appears you Jedi aren't so blinded by compassion yourselves. Your suspicion is admirable, if not entirely... developed."

"Answer his question, Sith," Jacen intoned.

The dark sider sighed. "Her father was a dear friend of mine. I know that sounds hard for you to believe, but so soon after his death by Abeloth, I don't want to see his daughter fall prey to the ways of the Jedi. I could never forgive myself."

"Okay, let's say that Jacen and I believed you," Luke said. "That you're willing to do all this and risk execution just to preserve your friend's memory. Answer me this: why didn't you warn your superiors about this possibility?"

"You really think I didn't? They wouldn't listen to me. Oh, yes, they did sense that Tyro Khai's interest in your son was genuine, Skywalker, that she was developing feelings for him. But they believed that the risk was negligible; I don't think so. I also think that your son might be the beginning of the downfall of my society."

"I don't follow," Luke said.

"If your son can influence Tyro Khai into turning to the light side," the Sith explained, "she could influence other members of our youth. It could turn into an ideological infection that would be the downfall of my Tribe."

"I see," Luke said, skepticism still in his tone. "In that case, where can you lead us that will make our discovery of Ben plausible without implicating you as a source of help?"

The Sith motioned for his belt. "If you don't mind?"

"Careful," Jacen said.

Indeed, the Sith moved slowly as he pulled out a datapad. "This should-"

It was then that all of their danger senses spiked and all three of them dropped to the floor.

Less than a second later, the warehouse around them was perforated by red laser bolts fired by the perimeter of police officers surrounding the building.


	15. Chapter 14

Over the din of the overwhelming firepower that was coming from outside, the Sith called out to Luke and Jacen, "Here!" He then slid to them the datapad that he was about to give before the shooting started; Luke caught it in his cybernetic hand. "It'll tell you where you need to go!"

The Sith then leaped high into the air, erecting a Force-shield as he went so that none of the blaster bolts touched him. And once he reached the zenith of his ascent, he pulled out and activated his crimson-bladed lightsaber, which he then rolled with as he descended in a downward arc for one of the walls.

The Sith slashed through the wall even as he was still above the field of fire before finally landing atop one of the police speeders. He unleashed a torrent of Force-lightning from his free hand toward the nearest group of cops, downing them in an instant, before he was forced to begin blocking off the shots coming from all of the other officers in his vicinity.

As the Sith redirected all of the shots back toward the cops and elsewhere, one of the officers, who hid behind the cover of her vehicle, could be heard shouting, "Get over here to the northern perimeter now! We need reinforcements!"

Back in the warehouse, where Luke and Jacen managed to hear that shouting, the former said to the latter, "I think that's our cue."

And as if to further signify that it was time for the two Jedi to get going, the crossfire that was perforating the warehouse stopped. Without hesitation, Luke and Jacen leaped to their feet and headed toward the opposite end of the warehouse from where the Sith was distracting the police.

Simultaneously, both Jedi activated their lightsabers and slashed through the wall before them. They looked right and left to find no signs of any police officers even as they heard blasterfire coming from the building's opposite side.

However, there were several curious civilians who were now looking at the two men who were wielding lightsabers in public.

"Help!" a woman who was far away from Luke and Jacen cried out. "There are Jedi here! Police!"

Luke and Jacen turned in the general direction of the spaceport and ran for their lives even as they deactivated and hooked their lightsabers to their belts. Even now, more people far behind them were attempting to alert the police to their presence. And at this point, the blasterfire coming from the other end of the building had ceased; whether or not the Sith escaped or was killed was something that neither Luke nor Jacen could concern themselves with at the moment.

Just as they got to the first intersection leading away from the warehouse, they looked to the left and found three police speeders heading directly for them; each of the officers riding in the passenger seats leaned out of their windows and opened fire on Luke and Jacen with their blasters.

Immediately, the two Jedi had their weapons activated again and they batted the bolts back at the chassis of all three vehicles. Unfortunately, the redirected bolts did nothing against the reinforced hulls of the three chassis or even against the durasteel of the forward viewports.

"This isn't going to work," Luke said even as the trio of police speeders were joined by several others coming in from behind their brethren.

"Any ideas?" Jacen asked, still batting away bolts.

"Yes, I do," Luke said quickly.

Then, almost instantly, a bout of thick fog appeared, obscuring Jacen's vision of everything around him except for the blades of his and Luke's lightsaber.

"Keep your mind open to my Force-presence," Luke said, "and be wary; you don't wanna get run over by any of those speeders." His green lightsaber was extinguished, leaving nothing else for his nephew to see.

Jacen took a moment to himself to deactivate his own lightsaber before he promptly opened up a more strict awareness of his uncle's Force-presence, as instructed. With that as his beacon, Jacen followed Luke through the thick, opaque cloud of fog, all the while flipping up and into the air when his danger sense warned him of a speeder that was about to run him over.

Two minutes later, the fog disappeared as quickly as it had appeared and Jacen found himself and Luke in an alley. His uncle used the Force to lift a manhole cover, and the Grand Master looked over to him and said, "Jump in."

Without question, Jacen did as his uncle bade, even though he knew what would come next.

The waft of the awful stench that permeated Pledos's sewer system hit Jacen's nostrils even before his booted feet landed in the muck below. He instinctively flinched away from the splash of even more muck when his uncle landed next to him, with the manhole cover firmly set in place back above.

Luke looked at his nephew with a wry smirk. "You gonna remark about what a wonderful smell I've discovered?"

"What?" Jacen asked.

"Never mind," Luke said. He then pointed in a certain direction in one of the tunnels before them. "We should head that way."

"Wait, how do you know where we have to go?" Jacen asked.

"I can sense the _Shadow_," Luke said.

"You can sense the ship?"

Luke looked at his nephew. "A part of Mara will always be there, Jacen. Of course I can sense it."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Uncle Luke, I didn't know."

"Let's just get moving," he said as he began leading the way over to their ship.

"Say, what did you do back there anyway?" Jacen asked.

"Same thing I did to get our lightsabers through customs," Luke said. "Fallanassi illusion; really threw the cops off, as you saw. And it's what I'll use to get spaceport security off the _Shadow_. You teleport us into the cockpit, get ready to take the helm, and use your telekinesis to get the docking clamps off the ship after you've got the _Shadow_ started; I'll be busy distracting everyone with another illusion."

"Right," Jacen said. "So what do you think happened to our Sith friend?"

"Since he was a Sith, I'd hardly call him a friend. Aside from that, I'm not sure. You?"

"I can't feel his Force-presence anywhere nearby. Maybe he got killed; but somehow, I think he got away."

"Me, too."

. . .

In another branch of the sewer system, far from Luke Skywalker and Jacen Solo, Sith Saber Odrok Degron was trekking through the muck. However, he was less lucky than the Jedi; he had sustained a blaster wound just above his right rib cage and was now limping along.

Thankfully, he kept his Force-senses open to find himself nearing a building full of people just above. He made it to a ladder, where he painfully pulled himself up to the manhole cover that he eventually pushed off. Degron found himself in an alley, one similar to the one that Skywalker and Solo had used to shake the cops, and when the Saber sensed that there weren't any police nearby, he pulled himself into the alley.

He then Force-leaped up to the second floor of one of the apartment buildings at either side. The window was open, so he crawled inside. No one was home; not that it really mattered to Degron, since he would have just killed anyone who was there before they could have warned anyone else of his intrusion.

Once he had sterilized his wound with the medkit from the apartment unit's refresher and applied a bacta patch on it, Degron got himself to one of the unit's comms. He soon established a voice-only link with his handler, High Lord Ivaar Workan himself.

"It's me, High Lord," Degron stated. "I gave the datapad to Skywalker and Solo."

"Excellent," Workan said. "Now leave Andalia as soon as you can and return to Kesh, Saber Degron."

"As you bid, My Lord."

Workan then ended the signal. And that was just as Degron sensed a presence approaching the unit.

The Saber rushed to the refresher and awaited his chance for the kill.


	16. Chapter 15

Because the Pledos Police Department knew that Luke and Jacen were the famous Jedi that they were instead of their false identities, the _Jade Shadow_ had, of course, been fixed with docking clamps that kept her to the deck of the hangar bay in which she had been parked. And as the _Shadow_ was trapped, she was being raided by about a dozen cops who were clearing her of everything that wasn't bolted down so that it could all be taken outside the city limits and destroyed; just as any trespassing Jedi were to be killed if they were discovered on Andalia, their possessions would join them into oblivion.

However, before anything valuable could actually be taken, Jacen and Luke had teleported into the _Shadow_'s cockpit, both reeking of the smell of the sewer from which they had just vacated. They both looked out through the open cockpit door, where they found half the cops carrying some things from Luke's quarters.

The cops, in turn, stopped at the sight (and smell) of the two Jedi who had inexplicably appeared in the cockpit. A second later, all of them dropped whatever they had in their arms to reach for their sidearms and call for their fellow officers.

"Sleep," Luke said with a wave of his hand.

Immediately, all six of the cops collapsed to the deck; three of them even snored.

"You take care of the rest," Luke said to Jacen. "I'll cast a White Current illusion in the hangar bay so you can deposit their _unconscious_ bodies." He emphasized the penultimate word in that sentence to make it clear to Jacen that he didn't want to kill any police officers. "But hurry up; I can only maintain the illusion for so long."

Jacen nodded and headed further into the ship while Luke sat himself in the copilot seat. He then concentrated as he brought up an illusion of a massive krayt dragon in the hangar bay before him; naturally, everyone there—workers, security guards, fellow passengers, and other cops—reacted with screams of terror before either fleeing or opening fire on the illusory creature.

Luke was able to maintain the illusion even as he heard blasterfire ring out through the _Shadow_; since he sensed that Jacen wasn't even injured, Luke's only concern now, outside of making sure the dragon didn't disappear, was whether or not anything valuable was damaged or destroyed aboard his ship.

It didn't take long before Jacen finally made it to the cockpit, sat himself down in the pilot seat, began the ignition sequence, and then reached out with the Force to break away the docking clamps holding the _Shadow_ to the deck. When that was done, Luke finally allowed the krayt dragon to disappear as Jacen piloted the ship up and away from the hangar to eventually reach Andalia's skies.

"Now comes the hard part," Luke said. "Hopefully, I can still cast an illusion to get us out of here."

Even before the _Shadow_ cleared Andalia's atmosphere, it was being pursued by a full squadron of Miy'til starfighters that began to pepper the Jedi ship's stern with lasers. Jacen began to swerve the _Shadow_ this way and that to avoid getting hit, but even with his piloting skills, there was no way the yacht wasn't going to be hit.

And because of the bumps that the _Shadow_ was enduring, it was hard for Luke to concentrate well enough to summon another distracting illusion. But after a few moments, he managed to have several mynocks appear before the viewports of four of the Miy'tils. The illusion prompted two of the starfighters to crash into each other and create a sizable explosion, while the other two ended blowing each other apart by firing upon their own fake mynocks with their lasers.

Luke then widened the number of mynocks out in the field around the _Shadow_ and her pursuers. However, even as he did so, he finally felt himself start to tire.

Still, three more Miy'tils were lost from the pursuit; one was blown into smithereens by one of her compatriots, while the other two ended up colliding into one another as the first two had. And even now, the remaining five were firing wildly at the false mynocks that were blocking their vision.

But just as it seemed as if Jacen would be able to lose the pursuers and jump into hyperspace, the mynocks completely disappeared and they were firing upon the _Shadow_ again; Luke, for his part, was breathing heavily from the exertion of casting those illusions.

With a grunt, Jacen threw the ship into a series of maneuvers and set her to autotarget the other Miy'tils; but even now, two more squads of the Hapan fighters rose from Andalia. And while Jacen did manage to blow away four Miy'tils with the _Shadow_'s automatic fire in conjunction with his erratic piloting in the span of ten seconds, he knew that if they didn't get out of there soon, they were done for.

However, before either of the backup squads could reach the _Shadow_ to aid the sole survivor of the previous squad, a Battle Dragon dropped out of hyperspace before the fighting ships.

The _Shadow_'s comm frequency picked up a transmission from a voice that was mildly familiar to Jacen.

"This is Admiral Serash of the _Dragon Queen_. Disengage immediately or we will be forced to open fire on any and all uncooperative Miy'til fighters."

Surprisingly, all of the incoming Miy'tils simply turned around and returned back to Andalia; even the surviving fighter from the first squad didn't even try to continue firing on the _Shadow_ before turning to join her brethren.

"_Jade Shadow_," Serash's voice said, "please dock in Hangar Bay One of the _Dragon Queen_."

. . .

About half an hour later, after Luke and Jacen had separately showered away all of the muck in which they embroiled themselves, they met with Allana, Danni, and Admiral Serash in the _Dragon Queen_'s throne room.

"It wasn't a premonition from the Force that prompted me to save you from Ducha Lorangal's forces, gentlemen," Allana said to Luke and Jacen from her throne. "But I had a feeling that you might have needed our help."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Luke said with a respectful nod. "You came just in time, as a matter of fact. I was actually getting tired of casting illusions; literally."

"I talked to the Ducha while you two were bathing," Allana elaborated. "At first, she denied ever knowing that either of you were on the planet. She was lying, of course, so I pointed out why she would allow three squadrons of Miy'til starfighters to be launched to go after a single yacht. Lorangal very reluctantly confessed that she had received an anonymous tip about there being Jedi in Pledos; from what I could tell from my reading of her Force-presence, she is sincere about not knowing where the information regarding your presence came from."

"Who wouldn't want to be known to Lorangal for letting her know that there were Jedi on her planet?" Jacen asked. "Especially when it was me and Uncle Luke? I'd think they'd want some kind of special commendation from their Ducha for ratting on us."

"Unless they weren't a Hapan subject," Luke posited.

Jacen looked at his uncle in curiosity. "You mean...?"

"I believe our Sith friend may have informed on us, Jacen," Luke said.

"Sith?" Allana asked with worry. "There are _Sith_ in my Consortium?"

"I'm afraid so, Your Majesty," Luke said. "We didn't want to jump to conclusions about the girl who had convinced my son to leave Hapes to find her, but now we have confirmation that she's a Sith, too."

Now Allana looked more confused than worried. "But if this Vestara Khai really is a Sith, why didn't she take any opportunity to kill me? From what you told me, she was with Ben for months; why didn't she use him to at least attempt to get to me?"

Jacen shrugged. "Maybe the Sith don't wanna kill you, Your Majesty. Maybe they don't see you as a threat."

"I doubt that, Jacen," Allana said. "Considering that my Consortium is essentially a haven for Jedi, notwithstanding a few territories like Andalia, I don't see why the Sith wouldn't want me dead."

"You are a difficult person to get to, Your Majesty," Luke reminded her. "I wouldn't be surprised if kidnapping my son were part of the Sith's plan to get to you."

"I don't see how that would be the case," Allana said. "While I do care about Ben, I don't understand how that would at all decrease security around me."

"You did lose two Jedi guardians," Jacen pointed out.

"Yes, but while I may be young, I'm not stupid," Allana said. "I doubled my security since you went to search for Ben; I even probed deeply with my Force-senses to vet out potential assassins, as Danni taught me to. Believe it or not, what she learned on Zonama Sekot can be even more effective in some ways than traditional Jedi training."

Jacen spared a glance over at his wife; she gave him a slight smile. It was all Jacen needed to know that she and Allana, in spite of the latter's initial distancing from the former, were growing closer now.

"Well, in that case," Luke said as he also looked to Danni, "maybe I can allow you back into the Jedi Order, Danni. We could use a little more expanding in our knowledge of the Force."

"I'll consider it, Master Skywalker," Danni replied.

Allana politely allowed a moment to pass before Luke and Jacen returned their attention to her before she asked, "So now that we know for a fact that there are Sith in my Consortium, what do you suggest we do about it, Master Skywalker?"

"For now, nothing too obvious, Your Majesty," Luke said. "If we tip our hand at this poit, the Sith may act on whatever plan they have sooner rather than later. And while that may make them sloppy, it would still give us less time to prepare for whatever they have in the cards."

"The Sith already know that you know about them," Allana pointed out. "Why wouldn't they think that you'd just tell me?"

"Because they, apparently, gave us some directions to lead Jacen and me to Ben," Luke said as he pulled out the datapad that the Sith gave them back on Andalia.

"Do you believe that you can trust such directions, Master Skywalker?" Allana asked.

"I have my doubts," Luke said. "Especially after the police found out about Jacen and me being down in Pledos. You see, Your Majesty, I believe that although this anonymous Sith provided Jacen and me with whatever is on this datapad, he also informed on us with the police."

"Why would he want to do that?" Allana asked. "Wouldn't that jeopardize whatever kind of trap he would have in store for you? And if luring you to be killed by the police was his plan, why this ruse?"

"I don't think he expected Jacen and me to die by the hands of the police down there, Your Majesty," Luke said. "Quite frankly, they were too easy to escape from."

Allana tilted her head inquisitively. "So what are you saying? That he informed on you while giving you useful information, at least seemingly, so that he could somehow seem more trustworthy?"

"He did help save our lives," Jacen pointed out. "Maybe he called the police to make his alliance with us more genuine."

"Quite a layer of deception," Luke observed. "I'd expect nothing less from Sith."

"Well, then, Master Skywalker," Allana said, "if you suspect that that datapad in your hand will lead you into a Sith trap, why follow it?"

"Because if I don't, Your Majesty," Luke said, "I may not be able to find my son."

"Then I hope you have a way to outwit whatever trap the Sith have in store for you," Allana said.

"I intend to," Luke said, "after I read whatever's on this datapad."


	17. Chapter 16

"Are we ready, Dr. Ruik?" Daala asked.

The male Nautolan scientist looked away from the equipment that had been set up on this floor of the LiMerge building and addressed his Chief of State. "We're ready, ma'am." He turned to one of his assistants, a female Devaronian, who was waiting by one of the room's exits. "Bring in the subject."

The Devaronian complied as she opened the door and waved in a young, mid-twenties human male with fair skin. He was guided by the Devaronian toward the equipment set that Dr. Ruik had prepared, and the human sat down in the chair that was among the apparatus. With efficiency becoming of their scientific backgrounds, Ruik and the Devaronian, Plesar, strapped the human subject to the chair by his wrists, ankles, and head; the subject, for his part, offered no resistance.

The reason for the subject's willingness to undergo what he was about to endure was because of the promise that Daala personally made to him. This man was destitute; he had lost his job fairly recently, and he knew that if he didn't provide for his family by the end of the month, they would probably end up down in Coruscant's Vongformed underworld, where they would either be killed or, worse, turned into Ferals.

He was promised that, no matter what happened to him, if he underwent this procedure, Daala would see to it that his family would never have to fear poverty or homelessness ever again.

It didn't take too long after the man was strapped in before Ruik and Plesar began injecting him with several different needles, all connected to a nearby console by long duraplast tubes, along various points on his body. Again, the subject offered no resistance even as he winced and occasionally cried out from the pain.

"Now comes the moment of truth," Ruik said as he walked over to the console. He looked up at his assistant. "You may join the others for this, Plesar."

The Devaronian wordlessly complied as she trotted over to Daala and the various other scientists who had been working on this project since the Chief of State's return from her previous vacation.

Once Plesar was in place, Ruik simply pressed a button on the console.

Immediately, red-brown fluid flowed from the console through the tubes before passing into the needles that led directly into the human subject's body. Within seconds, he began to scream in pain.

And the screaming only intensified with the agony that he was undergoing. The fluid kept on coming, as it was supposed to; according to Ruik and his assistants, if what Daala wanted had any chance of working, the subject had to have all of this fluid.

Soon, the fluid stopped flowing, and the tubes ran empty. A long, silent moment passed as the man slumped in the chair; the pulse monitor on the console said that he was still alive.

"Just give him a moment to regain consciousness," Ruik said to all the others, "and he should be..."

When the man woke up, his screaming had reached its zenith of intensity to the point that everyone else present had to cover their ears. Yet most of them still watched in horror as the red-brown fluid that he had taken in began to stream out of his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth.

The only person who watched with frustration instead of horror was Daala; she was hoping for better results, after all.

In a matter of seconds, the screaming died away along with the man. And not only did he lose his life, but he also lost his physical composition; in other words, he was literally reduced to a puddle of hydrocarbons that spilled out from the chair and onto the floor.

All was silent in the large room for quite a while before Ruik said, "Can someone clean that up?" He pointed to the mess that was their test subject.

One of the interns, a young blue-skinned female Twi'lek, hurried over with a bucket with a mop in it in one hand and a bottle of cleaning solution in the other; without any outward signs of disgust at her job, she went to work cleaning the mess up as Dr. Ruik walked over to Daala.

"I'm sorry, Chief," the Nautolan said. "I thought that-"

"Your clearly overestimated how much of those modified midi-chlorians were needed, Dr. Ruik," Daala interrupted him. "Next time, use a smaller amount."

"That was exactly what I was going to suggest," he said nervously.

"Keep me informed," she said. "Let me know when you get a successful test."

"Yes, ma'am," Ruik replied with a subservient nod even as Daala turned to leave the room.

As she walked down the corridor leading away from the midi-chlorians lab, she activated her commlink and spoke into it. "Commander Harkin?"

"Yes, Chief?" came the reply from the other end.

"You'll be in charge of making sure that family needn't worry about poverty and homelessness again," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

An hour later, Commander Harkin and two other loyal officers of the Coruscant Police Department had taken a transport shuttle to dump the corpses of one human woman and two children, both girls, down in the Vongformed underworld of the planet. The transport rose up before anyone aboard could see any Ferals come to collect their bodies for sustenance.

. . .

During their trip from Bastion to Hagamoor 3, Tahiri had a somewhat interesting conversation with her Mandalorian partner.

"You gonna tell me your name?" she had asked him at one point when they were still in hyperspace. She was sitting in the copilot seat while he was in the pilot's chair.

"I don't see any reason to," he had replied. The Mando appeared to be playing a game on his datapad, one that Tahiri couldn't see.

"Yeah, well, I'm gonna need to call you something other than 'Hey, you,'" she retorted.

"Call me Partner, then," he said indifferently.

"Partner, eh? Not very creative."

"Doesn't need to be; gets the job done."

"Guess it does," Tahiri said just as indifferently.

She turned back to look out at the view of hyperspace before her; a part of her wanted to follow in Partner's example and play a game on her own datapad. But her curiosity got the better of her.

"So do you have any family, Partner?"

"If I don't wanna tell you my name, what makes you think I wanna tell you about my family?"

"Well, at least that tells me you have one."

"Who doesn't? Even if we don't know our families, if we're orphaned or somethin', we still at least came from a mother. And that tends to mean a father, too; and that's even if you count sperm donors with no legal rights to you. And they, in turn, had to have come from somebody. And so on and so forth."

"Pretty technical definition of a family," Tahiri observed.

"I guess it is," Partner replied. So far in the conversation, his tone hadn't shifted from passive disinterest.

"So I guess you don't wanna let me know if you are the progenitor of a family," Tahiri said.

"No, I wouldn't."

"Right, Mandalorian secrets. I can understand that. Wanna tell me what game you're playing, at least?"

"Not really."

"Not much of a conversationalist, huh?"

"I don't need to be."

"Makes sense," Tahiri said.

It was at that point that the Firespray's proximity alert rang out, informing them that they were nearing Hagamoor 3. Right away, Partner shut off his 'pad, set it off to the side, and dropped his ship out of hyperspace over the designated moon.

Minutes later, the Firespray had landed near what used to be the research facility that was looking into the nanovirus plaguing Mandalore. While Partner was still in his Mando helmet and armor, Tahiri had put on a vac suit to protect her from the inhospitable atmosphere of Hagamoor 3 as she and her "friend" went to see what they could find that the Imperial investigation team couldn't.

It took them a couple of hours, but finally, they did find something interesting.

Partner held up the thin sliver of metal before Tahiri. "_Beskar_," he said. "Found over there." He thumbed in the direction of a nearby junk pile in the debris.

"That's it?" Tahiri asked.

"It's all the _beskar_ I can find in this ruin," he said. "But the fact that there was even this much confirms that there was a Mandalorian presence here when this facility was destroyed. And considering the fact that _beskar_ is nigh-impossible to destroy, that means that whatever happened here was so destructive, it managed to break it."

"But why wouldn't there be more _beskar_ then?" Tahiri asked. "Surely, there'd have been more than just this little sliver."

"My thoughts exactly. And since neither of us were told that any _beskar_ was found during the Imperial investigation, what does that tell us?"

Tahiri took a moment to let the pieces click together in her head. "Are you saying there's someone on the inside of the Imperial government working with Belok Rhal to cover up his involvement here?"

"Let's just assume, for a moment, that an Imperial investigator, or group of Imperial investigators, weren't as forthcoming with Head of State Fel as they should have been," Partner suggested. "Maybe they didn't log what they were supposed to log. Maybe they managed to take all of the pieces of _beskar_ from here to cover their tracks; but this one little sliver managed to sneak by them somehow, as if for our benefit of a more complete investigation."

"So if there's someone dirty in the Imperial authorities," Tahiri said, "maybe they can tell us where we can find the rest of the _beskar_ that was taken from here."

"And let 'em know they should have been a little bit more thorough in their investigation," Partner said as he toyed with the sliver in his hand.


	18. Chapter 17

When Luke and Jacen sat down in the _Jade Shadow_'s galley to look through the datapad that the Sith gave them back on Andalia, they both froze at the name of the planet that the 'pad displayed.

Kavan.

Neither of them needed to say to the other what the significance of that planet was, especially to Luke; that was the world where Jacen's clone, the future Darth Caedus, killed Luke's wife, Mara.

Unfortunately, none of the information in the 'pad told them why they had to go there; only that this place was the next step to finding Ben. A set of coordinates to a specific location on the planet followed.

"Those coordinates... that was exactly where Mara died," Luke whispered. He didn't look at Jacen when he said that; his eyes remained glued to the 'pad's screen and everything about him—his Force-presence, his body language, his facial expression—remained blank and open to interpretation.

Jacen gave his uncle about half a minute to compose himself before he spoke. "This is a part of the Sith's plan, Uncle Luke. Don't forget that. If they do have a trap set for us on Kavan, they probably made it so that the association of-"

"We have an advantage, Jacen," Luke interrupted; he looked at his nephew this time. "We know what the Sith are trying to do, and they don't know that we're on to 'em. And if they're trying a psychological tactic on me by selecting this planet, now I know that they intend to use it on me. Therefore, I can counter it."

"Do you really think it'll be that simple?" Jacen asked. "What if it's too much for you?"

"Do you think you should go alone then, Jacen?" Something in Luke's tone made it seem as if he really wanted his nephew to say "yes" to that question.

"Well... if it is a trap, and I spring it alone, we could catch the Sith unawares," Jacen suggested. "You could swoop in with the _Shadow_ as backup and blast 'em away. And even if it gets too hairy, I could just teleport myself out of there as a last resort."

Luke looked back to the 'pad for several heartbeats. His Force-presence was still a mystery to Jacen, and the latter didn't want to pry into his uncle's private thoughts, so he let him be.

But if Jacen had to guess, Luke was thinking about whether or not sending his nephew down by himself was really a tactically sound idea or if it was just a way to distance himself from the pain provided by the location of Mara's death. Jacen himself saw the advantage of avoiding that pain; if Luke was going to be distracted in any way by the fact that he was heading to where his wife died, he would be compromising himself in a potential combat situation with the Sith.

It wasn't long before Luke turned back to his nephew and announced his decision. "No. I will go down there myself, spring the trap, and you could act as backup by blasting away the Sith."

"But, Uncle Luke-"

"We're going to Kavan," Luke interjected. "You're going to land me about a kilometer from these coordinates, then return to orbit. When you feel that I'm in danger from whatever the Sith have in store for the both of us, you come in. Is that understood, Jacen?"

"Uncle Luke, there has to be another way to find-"

"Is that understood, Jacen?" Luke's tone was a lot more forceful now.

Jacen pursed his lips to try to argue against this course of action. But he only sighed and said, "Yes, Uncle Luke."

"Good. Now tell Her Majesty that we'll be departing her ship now. I'll be headed to the cockpit to get the _Shadow_ ready for launch." He then stood up and headed for his vessel's cockpit.

But right at the galley's exit, Luke stopped and said, "Jacen?"

"Yeah?" His reply was tinged with both concern and hope that his uncle would reconsider his choice.

"If you're worried that I'll become distracted on Kavan," Luke said before turning around to face his nephew, "that's not it. The Sith would see me as a much more valuable target than you. You are powerful, and the Sith would be fools not to consider you a threat; but between the two of us, I think they're much more interested in the Grand Master of the Jedi Order than his nephew who's still only a Knight."

"They still might be suspicious as to why I'm not with you, in that case," Jacen pointed out.

"Perhaps," Luke replied. "But regardless, if I have any demons that I need to face there, Jacen, I have to face them and I'm not going to use you as an excuse to not go down there."

"Suit yourself, Uncle Luke. I just hope you know what you're doing."

"So do I, Jacen. So do I."

Minutes later, the _Jade Shadow_ departed from the _Dragon Queen_'s hangar bay and jumped into hyperspace.

. . .

The first battle of the war between the Imperial Remnant and the nation of Mandalore began very suddenly, but without surprise on either side. While the Mandalorians weren't surprised since they were the ones to jump out of hyperspace and into the Borosk system, the Imperials had been prepared for just this occasion.

Years ago, Borosk had been successfully defended against the Yuuzhan Vong with its ion cannons and minefields, planetary shields, turbolasers, and the plethora of Star Destroyers that carried full complements of TIE fighters, interceptors, and bombers. The same was true now even as they were facing off against Mandalorian Bes'uliik fighters, which were equipped with _beskar_ armor that could take a considerable amount of pounding from lasers, concussion missiles, and proton torpedoes even without energy shields.

Unfortunately for the Imps, that made the Mando fighters deadlier than anything that the Hapes Consortium, the Galactic Alliance, or even the Vong could have thrown at the Imperial Remnant.

However, that didn't mean that the significantly more fragile TIEs couldn't go toe-to-toe with their heavily-armored opponents. With the TIEs' well-renowned maneuverability, there were a lot fewer of them who were destroyed in the first wave of engagement with the Bes'uliiks than one would have thought.

Still, within that first wave, approximately forty percent of the TIEs were wiped out while barely two dozen Bes'ulliks were obliterated. And while the Imperial Star Destroyers had much better luck at blowing away some Bes'uliiks, already several of the Mando fighters were pounding away at the enemy capital ships with their armaments of lasers and physical projectiles. While the barrages from the seemingly invincible enemy fighters did little against the shields and reinforced armor of the Imp capital ships, they were still enough to give the Destroyers' gunners a hard time in blowing them away.

Half an hour in, after reducing the TIEs down to about thirty percent of their original capacity, the remaining Bes'uliiks, who had only been reduced to ninety percent, turned away and simply jumped back from where they came from.

Naturally, this left the remaining Imp forces as confused as they were distraught by what was very clearly a victory on the Mandos' part.

. . .

Minutes after their hit-and-run raid on Borosk, the Mandalorian fleet dropped out for a course correction in an unnamed system that was just across the Imperial border.

"This is only the beginning, soldiers," Mirta Gev said on the fleetwide frequency from her own Bes'uliik. "Now that we know how well we can handle ourselves at a stronghold as fortified as well as Borosk, we now know just how many more ships we need if we really wanna go up against the Imps."

"In other words, Mandalore," the voice of Belok Rhal cut in on the frequency, "you believe that the bugs need some incentive to make some capital ships for us?"

Rhal was referring to the Verpines of Roche who were mainly responsible for manufacturing the Bes'uliiks.

"Oh, yes," Gev replied with determination. "And if we need to expand ourselves and use armor that's inferior to _beskar_, then so be it."

"My Mandalore," the voice of Gev's husband, Ghes Orade, cut in, "the Imps will strike back on us now. We may not get the opportunity to properly set up any facilities in the galaxy to-"

"What's done is done, my husband," Gev cut in. "Don't question your Mandalore."

"Very well," Orade replied.

Before the fleet jumped back into hyperspace, Rhal, in his own Bes'uliik, smiled behind his own helmet. It was ironic that Ghes Orade should be so submissive to his wife now when he was the one who betrayed her.

Even if it was unknowingly.

But now was not the time to reminisce on that; Rhal first had to coordinate with the rest of the fleet for the next jump to Roche.


	19. Chapter 18

Looking up from her milkshake glass, Vestara grinned coyly at Ben from across the table.

Ben returned her grin; but his smile was much more blissful and carefree. "What?" he asked. Even his tone sounded light.

"I'm just wondering, Ben," Ves said, "are you ever gonna drink that milkshake or do you want me to get fat on seconds?"

Ben looked back down at his drink. "Oh. Yes." He gave a light chuckle. "I forgot." He then mechanically picked the glass up and sipped from it before setting it back down on the tabletop in the same manner; he didn't even touch the straw that he could have sipped from.

"Close enough," she said with a raised eyebrow. She then took a sip from her own shake with the straw that was there.

The two of them were sitting in an ice cream parlor in Kesh's capital city of Tahv, with various other Sith around them who were seemingly minding their own business and enjoying their own scoops of ice cream or glasses of shakes.

However, as laid back as all these Sith seemed, they were all internally alert for the young Jedi Knight who was sitting across from one of their very own; if anything should happen—in other words, if Ben Skywalker were to suddenly stand up and try to resist his captivity—the Sabers and Tyros around the Jedi and Ves would be on hand to neutralize the threat promptly.

But as much as Ves appreciated their concern—even if that concern came more from the mandate of High Lord Workan himself than any actual sense of empathy these Sith may have held for Ves—she knew that there was virtually no chance that Ben would rise up.

The reason for Ben's compliant behavior, as it had been for the past several days since he arrived on Kesh, was because he was incredibly high on a combination of acid and marijuana. With that combined with the intimacy that Ves provided for him, he could probably be tortured seven ways to next week and not feel anything.

When Ves previously came to the Circle of Lords with her plan for Ben sometime after her departure from Hapes, they had all been skeptical.

"Even assuming that the Circle of Lords would accept the idea of a young Jedi walking free on Kesh, Tyro Khai," High Lord Workan had said, "how can you be so sure that your plan won't seriously damage his mind? He wouldn't be a useful Sith, after all."

"If I'm unsuccessful with my plan, and Skywalker's mind is scrambled beyond repair, my Lords," Ves had said, "I will accept any and all accountability for my failure and I will even kill him if I have to."

Surprisingly, the conversation that the Circle had among themselves didn't take long. In the end, Grand Lord Vol declared, "Tyro Khai, the Circle of Lords approves of your plan."

Not long after that, Ben had arrived to Kesh, where he was captured and taken into Ves's home.

Now, here he was, on a particular combination of drugs where he was being conditioned to accept his surroundings. Ves knew that her love and affection for him could only distract him for so long before the overwhelming feeling of the dark side of the Force that permeated the entirety of Kesh would have prompted him to turn even on her.

Of course, Ves knew that she had a challenge on her hands during her time with him on Hapes; when he had told her of his brief time on the ancient Sith world of Ziost during the Second Galactic Civil War, Ves realized it would take a lot more than her love to seduce him to the dark side.

"It was cloying, yet seductive," Ben had told her during one of their post-coital discussions in her Hapan apartment. "It felt destructive to my soul, yet I wanted it. I wanted it so badly; but in my heart of hearts, I knew I couldn't completely bring myself over to it. I couldn't do that to myself; not as a Jedi."

Ves had completely turned over to him and pulled her body closer to his. "Do you think that if you were to have stayed there any longer... you would have turned, Ben?"

He had looked back to her with a haunted stare. "I think I would have, Ves."

But Ziost was one thing, Ves knew; the permeating feeling of the dark side there was ancient and without form, like a force of nature. The dark side of the Force that permeated Kesh, on the other hand, though it had permeated for thousands of years, was alive and with so many to embody its power in every Force-sensitive member of the Lost Tribe of the Sith. One would think that would make the dark side feel that much more tempting to someone like Ben, but Ves wasn't foolish enough to believe that; even on Ziost, Ben found it within himself to fight back against the force of nature that was the dark side on that planet.

If he had been allowed to roam free on Kesh, he would have something tangible to fight back against in the form of the Lost Tribe itself. Oh, sure, he might not be able to fight for long, not against so many Lost Tribe members, before he got himself killed, but Ves knew that he wouldn't go down fighting.

But Ves didn't bring him here so that he could die; she brought Ben here to turn him. And to do that, he would need to undergo a long time of brainwashing, where his ingestion of drugs could better acquaint him with the feeling of the dark side that Kesh provided. Then, when Ves judged that the time would be right, he would be weened off the acid-marijuana combination like a toddler being weened off a formula bottle. When that happened, he could start down the path of embracing the dark side with his altered but sober mind.

And even after that, Ves will see to it that Ben wouldn't be completely sober; not only will he get back to drinking with her, but she, too, would always make sure that his love for her will make him completely forget his Jedi ways. In time, he would forget what it meant to abide by his duties as a Jedi Knight as he became a member of the Lost Tribe of the Sith.

But first, Ves thought, she had to make sure that he could consume a milkshake like a normal person; being high could only go so far as an excuse, she thought.

Ten minutes after they sat down with their shakes, they had just about finished them; and Ben had accidentally poured about a quarter of his own drink down his shirt toward the end of his consumption of it. He only giggled in his stupor; Ves couldn't help but share in that giggling.

But just before either of them could stop giggling, a pale Tyro suddenly and swiftly stood up from his seat near Ves and Ben's table and held his shikkar blade up to the latter's throat.

Nearly everyone, including Ves, stood up from where they sat and had their hands to the lightsabers on their belts. A long moment passed where everyone and everything seemed to be frozen in time.

The only person in the ice cream shop who barely responded was Ben; he was still acting as if he were passively dreaming.

"Ves?" he asked with concern; his tone was still ridiculously upbeat and oblivious to the threat posed to his life. "You want me to stand up, too?"

Ves looked up at the Tyro, a male her age named Dubloch Velk, before looking back down at Ben.

"No, it's fine, Ben; you sit there for as long as you like," she said.

"Okay," Ben replied.

Ves returned her gaze at Velk; he was looking back at her with evident contempt on his expression.

"He lost quite a bit of milkshake there," the Tyro said, pointing with his free hand to the mess on Ben's tunic. "I get a little upset at seeing that kind of waste, Ves. Sorry; I may have overreacted."

Ves could tell from Velk's Force-presence that that was merely an excuse; he just wanted to make sure that Ben wasn't faking his stupor. It seemed that Ben had satisfied Velk's little test.

"Apology accepted," Ves said as Velk calmly returned to his own table. Every other Sith also returned to their seats, as did Ves.

"I'll tell you what, Ben," Ves said as if nothing of note just happened, "how about I take you to a special place tomorrow?"

"Oh? Where would that be, Ves?"

"The very ship that brought us here: the _Omen_."


	20. Chapter 19

"The Chief Manager is ready to see you," the secretary said from behind her desk.

"About time," Partner said as he and Tahiri stood up from their seats in the outer office. "I was just about ready to blow that door down myself in another ten seconds." He was referring to the door that led into Chief Manager Fledrek's office, which he and Tahiri were now walking toward.

The secretary, a dark-skinned human female in her late thirties, looked disconcerted and even threatened by what the Mandalorian said.

"He's joking," Tahiri said for the woman's benefit; the former Jedi even put on an attempt of a reassuring smile.

"Yeah, sure," Partner muttered.

Tahiri gave the Mandalorian a look that wordlessly told him to shut up. She then pressed the button that opened the door.

Inside the inner office, the portly, brown-skinned human male of middle age behind the desk stood up and spread his arms out at either side. As he did so, he greeted his two new guests with a smile that was as fake as the one that Tahiri had just given the secretary.

"Miss Veila and Mister Anonymous!" Chief Manager Fledrek said as he walked around the desk. "I'm honored to have you here today!" He shook each of their hands as he spoke; Tahiri was suitably compliant with her own handshake, while Fledrek practically had to use both of his own hands to shake Partner's hand for all of the effort that the Mando put into it. "Please, sit down!" He waved to the guest chairs in front of the desk.

"Why?" Partner asked.

"I beg your pardon?" Fledrek asked, his demeanor still cheerful.

"Why should we sit down?" Partner clarified. "You know why we're here. So let's get on with it."

"Yes, Head of State Fel did inform me that you'd be coming here to look over evidence from the research facility on Hagamoor 3, and we did collect some from that moon," Fledrek said. "But he never said what exactly you were looking for; so, before I take you both on a tour of my forensics building, I'd like to know what exactly I can help you two with."

Partner then took out the sliver of _beskar_ from a pocket on his belt. "You familiar with this?"

Fledrek squinted down at it briefly before looking back up at Partner. "Should I be?"

"I think you should," Partner replied. "This is a piece of Mandalorian _beskar_ steel, the same material that my armor and the armor of every other self-respecting Mandalorian would have. We found this at the destroyed research facility on Hagamoor 3; we think that the rest of it was taken."

"And since Head of State Fel told my friend and I that Gleros was the planet where high-priority forensics investigations took place," Tahiri said, "we thought you might know where the rest of the _beskar_ might be."

Fledrek looked gobsmacked. "I had no idea that there was any of this _beskar_ on Hagamoor 3. It certainly wasn't among any of the evidence manifests coming from that moon."

"Veila?" Partner asked.

"He's telling the truth," Tahiri said almost instantly. "He knows nothing about the _beskar_."

"Figures," Partner replied. "Well, then, I guess it's a good thing that Inspector Velias is coming, right?" His tone made it clear that his question was directed at Fledrek.

"Oh, yes, yes, I called him here, as you requested," the Chief Manager of the forensics building confirmed hastily. "He should be here any minute."

"When is he supposed to-"

Partner's question was cut off when Tahiri screamed, "Get down!"

She tackled Partner and Fledrek to the floor and erected a Force-shield around them right before the building was rocked by an explosion that came from the basement. In a matter of seconds, the structure of the building collapsed to its foundations, and what wasn't incinerated by the explosion was reduced to debris.

Those who were in the building, and who weren't protected by Tahiri's Force-shield, had all died either from the explosion itself or from the resultant collapse.

As for Tahiri, Partner, and Fledrek, they all lay unconscious, buried beneath a mound of rubble from which they wouldn't be rescued for another two hours at least.

However, thanks to his armor and helmet, Partner, who was on his back, was only unconscious for a scant few minutes before he woke up and immediately began struggling against the I-beam under which he was pinned; Tahiri, who lay prone, was right next to him, her breathing shallow.

"Veila, wake up!" Partner shouted as he tried nudging her back to consciousness. "You gotta wake up! You gotta use your Force-powers to get us outta here!"

Soon, Tahiri moaned, and a few seconds after that, her eyes fluttered open.

"Come on, Veila!" Partner muttered. "Use the Force! Get us outta this!"

"I'll try, but-" She groaned before she spoke again. "I'm in a lotta pain right now."

"Well, work past it then!" Partner replied with frustration. "You're a Jedi; isn't that supposed to be something you have to work past?!"

"_Former_ Jedi!"

"Whatever, just get us out!"

"Then let me concentrate! This isn't gonna be easy!"

"Fine, fine, just do your thing!"

Tahiri closed her eyes and focused as she reached out for the Force. She shut away everything that her natural biological senses informed her about the physical world and concentrated on the I-beam that pinned her, Partner, and Fledrek down to the groaning floor.

With great effort, which put an even greater strain on the injuries that she had received, Tahiri managed to lift the I-beam a few inches of herself, Partner, and Fledrek.

"Go!" Tahiri heard herself shouting.

It didn't take long afterwards before she lapsed into unconsciousness again.

When she awakened once more, she found herself laying on a bed in a hospital room; her right arm was hooked to an IV. Sitting right next to her was Partner; his armor looked clean, as if he hadn't been among the debris of a blown-up building.

"It's been a few hours," he explained. "When you got that I-beam off us, I got you and Fledrek outta there; and believe me, it wasn't easy carrying his load with a hand on his ankle. All the good that did him, though; he was pronounced dead on the scene when we got outta there. You were lucky, though."

"Why didn't you-" She groaned as she felt a great pain in her stomach. "-continue with the investigation?"

"I let Fel know about you," Partner explained. "He told me not to leave your side 'til you got better; so that's what I'm doing."

"Did you... tell him... about Inspector Velias?"

"Yeah, I told him that he didn't show before the building blew up," Partner explained. "Fel said that he'd look into what happened to him."

The portable holocomm on Partner's belt beeped. He picked it up and saw who was calling. "Well, speak of the devil," he remarked. He then activated it.

Indeed, Jagged Fel was displayed before him and Tahiri.

"It's good to know you're alright, Tahiri," Jag said. "I'm sorry to hear about what happened to Chief Manager Fledrek."

"He wasn't in on it," Tahiri said.

"Yes, so your partner told me," Jag stated. "By the way, Inspector Velias has gone missing. He hasn't been at either work or in his home lately; no word about him since the forensics explosion. You did tell Fledrek not to tell Velias who was asking for him, right?"

"We did," Partner confirmed. "Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if Velias had figured that if he was being asked at all about Hagamoor 3, he'd probably pack his bags and skip Imperial space; probably for the safety provided by Mirta Gev and, more likely, Belok Rhal. No doubt that Fledrek let it spill that this was about the research facility."

"I hope this means the trail hasn't gone cold from here," Tahiri said.

"Not necessarily," Partner said. "If we go through the lingering residue from the site of the explosion, we might find some evidence that it was used by at least one of my own people."

"Or Velias could have planted it there, and we'd have no way to trace it back to the Mandalorians," Tahiri countered.

"Maybe," Partner said. "But still, it'll be worth a look when you're all patched up, right?"

"We should go now," Tahiri said as she tried to sit up; only the pain in her stomach caused her to lay back down.

"Listen to him, Tahiri," Jag said. "Rest and heal up. Besides, I'm sure your partner can take care of himself for a while."

Tahiri looked at Partner. "Did the doctors tell you how long I'll-"

"Few days, give or take," Partner replied.

Tahiri grunted. "Great; just what I need," she said facetiously.

"If that'll be all," Jag said, "I have a war I have to run."

"Have fun then," Partner said.

Jag looked at him with a look that said, "Really?" before he disconnected the call.

Partner then stood up and went to leave the room.

"Partner?"

"Yeah?" he asked as he looked back at Tahiri.

"I really am no Jedi anymore," she said. "Because when I find Velias, I'm gonna make him talk. And he's gonna hurt; and he's gonna die. Don't you tell Jag about that."

"Don't worry," he replied. "I won't."


	21. Chapter 20

"It is done," Grand Lord Vol proclaimed. "We may leave now."

In a very special spot in one of Kavan's sewers, Vol and all of the High Lords of the Lost Tribe of the Sith stood up from the circle around which they sat and proceeded in a single line away. Ten minutes later, they reached a ladder that led up to an open manhole above; but instead of climbing the ladder, they each simply Force-leaped up to the alleyway above one by one.

When they were all in the alley, and High Lord Workan was the one to use the Force replace the manhole cover, they began to leave the alley and split up from each other; as previously dictated by the Grand Lord, they each had to find separate passage off Kavan to remain inconspicuous to the public.

But before they all left, Workan had a few words with Vol.

"My Lord," the human said, "I hope you forgive me for asking, but... why don't we simply use this opportunity to kill Skywalker and Solo? Why did we have to perform that ceremony?"

"There is nothing for me to forgive, High Lord Workan," Vol said. "Yes, it would be more practical to lay a trap, such as an ambush, to kill the two Jedi. But you must remember, Lord Workan, that we have Skywalker's own son in our grasp, with his mind being molded to our benefit by one of our very own; I'd like to test Tyro Khai's success when the time comes. And until it does, Skywalker will stay alive."

"What do you mean... Oh," the High Lord said as realization dawned on his face.

Vol grinned. "And if Tyro Khai does fail us... then we can kill Skywalker ourselves."

. . .

The day after the Circle of Lords departed from Kavan, the _Jade Shadow_ landed on Kavan in a docking port (the original plan to set Luke a kilometer away from the site of Mara's death was squashed by the planet's Orbital Security demanding that they set down in the port). The ship's boarding ramp was lowered to the deck, ready to allow Luke to disembark.

But right before the Jedi Grand Master took one step on the ramp, his nephew's hand rested itself on his shoulder. Luke looked back and over at Jacen.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you, Uncle Luke?" Jacen asked.

"Like you said, Jacen," Luke said, "if the Sith are going to spring a trap, you can act as backup."

"Okay, but now I might not be able to help you out as quickly as I could if I were allowed to park in orbit," Jacen said.

Luke shook his head. "All the same, I'm sure you'll make it in time to help me."

"Let's hope you're right."

"Let's hope you don't even have to come to my rescue to begin with."

Jacen nodded but said no more. He then turned back and returned to the cockpit while Luke finally stepped off the _Shadow_; as soon as his feet touched the deck, the boarding ramp was raised back into place.

Once Luke had left the spaceport, he took a hovertaxi that brought him as close as possible to the coordinates of where Mara died. When he was back on foot, he headed to the nearest alley, used the Force to lift up a manhole cover that he set off to the side, and then plunged into the sewer below.

_Why is it that the Sith are having me end up in the sewers lately?_ Luke wondered to himself. _I guess it makes sense; the Sith are as morally repugnant as any sewer is physically repugnant_.

But Luke used a Jedi calming technique to push the smell of the sewer to the back of his mind before he brought out his datapad from his belt. He set it to guide him to the coordinates of where his wife died years ago and headed there without further hesitation.

As he walked, tension began to build within Luke's being to a point that no Jedi calming technique could have helped to alleviate; he was heading to the place where Mara was killed by Jacen's clone, the man who would become Darth Caedus not long after her death. Luke still remembered the day when he felt his wife's presence depart from the living world; he still remembered the rage, the grief, the depression, all of those swirling emotions, reverberated within his soul afterwards.

After all this time, he was still haunted by the fact that he had been driven by those emotions to kill the woman he believed to have slain Mara, Lumiya. The image of her headless body falling off that precipice on Terephon was also something that Luke could never forget.

Lumiya may have been a threat to the galaxy, especially since she had been the one to train Jacen's clone into the Sith that he became, but Luke did ultimately come to feel regret for killing her out of vengeance. He promised himself that he would never lapse into that state of mind again.

Yet, now that he was returning to the place where Mara died, the guilt of that day, of the survivor's guilt that he had over her death and the regret that he had when he decapitated Lumiya, was resurfacing within Luke's being with each step that he took. And as he grew closer to where Mara was killed, he feared that he would fall back into that very anger and desperation that drove him to kill Lumiya; if these Sith who kidnapped Ben had any traps laid for him, Luke hoped that, if he had to kill them, he wouldn't do it with rage in his heart.

It felt like forever, but it was only ten minutes before he finally reached the site of Mara's death.

At first, he sensed no sign of a Sith trap, either from his physical senses or through his connection to the Force. But slowly and carefully, Luke walked, looking around at the sewer that had been rebuilt from the destruction that was caused by the fatal battle that Mara had with Jacen's clone. His steps were gingerly taken; he wondered if he would set off some kind of booby trap, or if there was a Sith who was about to burst from either one of the walls or from beneath the surface.

But so far, nothing.

And then-

A flash of physical, mental, and emotional pain suddenly burst from both within Luke's body and from without. He screamed as he endured an indescribable agony that didn't so much touch every facet of his being as ravage it.

In that moment, all of the negative emotions that Luke had that had been building up as he approached the site of his wife's death overwhelmed him completely; his body, mind, and soul were chained to this moment of agonizing hell as the images of everything that occurred here, and everything that resulted from this moment, filled Luke's mind with no hope of reprieve or escape.

Not only did Luke feel Mara's death intensified, but he saw it happen. He saw her as Jacen's clone-

No. No, it wasn't Jacen's clone; it was Jacen himself. The idea that Darth Caedus was his nephew's clone was itself a Sith fabrication; Luke saw it clearly now.

And with this realization, which was compounded by the vivid details of what he saw when Mara died and the pain that wracked his body, mind, and soul, Luke knew what he had to do.

Killing Lumiya was a mistake; but not because it brought him close to the dark side. No, it was a mistake simply for the fact that she wasn't the one who killed Mara; Jacen—not his clone, but Jacen himself—who murdered Mara.

Jacen had to die. And when that happened, Mara would return to him. Ben would return to him. And when Jacen was gone, all of the Sith would die.

It was then that that moment of unadulterated agony ended for Luke, and he opened his eyes with a newfound determination to kill his nephew.


	22. Chapter 21

When Jacen felt Luke undergoing a form of great torture through the Force, the first thing he did was power up the _Jade Shadow_'s engines. However, mere seconds after that, he received a transmission; he had a feeling that it was probably coming from spaceport security telling him that he hadn't received proper clearance for departure from his docking port.

But he didn't care, not when his uncle's life was on the line, so he ignored the transmission; and he didn't even think about any police forces that would be on his tail even after he lifted off. Jacen nearly collided with two incoming ships, but he managed to swerve out of the way each time before he soared off for the coordinates where Mara died.

Once Jacen was over those coordinates, he set the _Shadow_ to hover in place twenty feet over the street below before he stood up and headed for the boarding ramp, which had already been lowered for him to disembark. He then leaped out and landed in a Force-cushioned crouch on the road that didn't seem to have any traffic and headed for an alleyway that had a manhole cover already lifted up and out of the way.

But before Jacen could even enter the alley, Luke suddenly leaped into view from out of the open manhole and landed at the alley's threshold.

Jacen was both shocked and scared by the death glare that his uncle was giving him and the sense of unmitigated, passionate rage that emanated from his Force-presence.

Before Jacen had a chance to ask him what was wrong, Luke had his lightsaber off his belt and activated. Not even a second later, the Jed Grand Master leaped across the gap between himself and his nephew to try to strike Jacen down.

But Jacen instinctively brought up his own saber to block the strike, yet he now found himself being backed across the street toward the wall of the building behind him as he dueled defensively against Luke.

"Uncle Luke, what are you doing?!" Jacen managed to ask just before his back hit the wall.

He then leaped up and over his uncle to land right behind him, only to be kicked in the back; Jacen landed prone on the road, but managed to turn to his sore back just in time to block Luke's next strike. He then kicked Luke's left kneecap, bringing him into a kneeling position, before just as promptly kicking up at his uncle's jaw; Jacen used that momentum to bring himself back over into an over-the-shoulder roll that returned him to his feet.

However, Jacen was then blown back off his feet by a powerful Force-shove from Luke that landed him in the alley from which the Grand Master emerged. And right before Jacen even landed, Luke was in the air so that he could soar down to deliver a killing stroke upon his nephew.

Jacen was ready for him, though; even as he was still on his back, Jacen provided a Force-shove of his own that knocked Luke out of his intended descending arc and now had him falling back to the street. Then, before Jacen could give his uncle time to recover, he leaped back to his feet and gave yet another Force-shove that knocked Luke back to the wall behind him.

The Grand Master's back crashed against the wall behind him and he fell prone to the sidewalk that was across the street from Jacen, who now left the alley to see if his uncle was all right. But Luke swiftly looked up, his face contorted more in anger than in pain, and he raised his free hand—his natural one—up to deliver a torrent of Electric Judgement, a technique that Jacen remembered seeing his uncle use during the final battle of the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Jacen caught the torrent on his lightsaber, but now he found himself being forced to stay in place as he used his own Force-powers to redirect the flow of electricity into the neutralizing agent that was his lightsaber.

And that effort only increased for Jacen not only with each passing second, but with each step that Luke now took toward him.

"Uncle Luke, stop this!" Jacen called out. "Please! Why are you doing this?! What's wrong with you?!"

Luke didn't answer; he only continued to close the distance to Jacen with each subsequent step.

Finally, the power of the Electric Judgement became so great that it blew Jacen so far back into the alley behind him that his back hit the wall there; as his lightsaber clattered away from his grip, he collapsed to the ground.

But Jacen only lay there for two seconds before he was raised bodily into the air by Luke, who was now gripping him with the Force by the throat. Naturally, Jacen began to struggle as his breath and vision began to fade along with his life.

But even through this losing battle, Jacen saw Luke enter the alley and say, "Now you will pay for what you've done."

"Uncle Luke!" Jacen creaked out through hoarse breath. "This isn't you! You don't... do this! You're... the Grand Master... of the... Jedi... Order! Not... your father... Darth... Vader!"

But Luke's rage continued to permeate through his Force-presence as well as in his outward expression. However, his hold did lighten around Jacen's throat as he pulled his nephew closer to him.

"Funny you should compare me to Vader," Luke growled, "when, with her dying words, Mara compared you to Palpatine."

Jacen was confused by that statement; but he didn't have time to think about it before he was tossed back by another Force-shove from his uncle. Once again, his back hit the wall behind him, but this time, he was pinned there, and the invisible grip on his throat tightened again.

As he felt his lungs beginning to collapse, Jacen couldn't help but look down at his lightsaber nearby. And even though it was getting really difficult to concentrate, he managed to return his gaze to Luke before he Force-nudged the weapon over to the Grand Master's feet; the older man didn't seem to notice, as his rage seemed to distract him that much from the danger now being posed to him.

Then, with just the tiniest bit of the Force, Jacen brought his lightsaber up by a few inches even as it was simultaneously activated.

The blade pierced through Luke's right leg just below the knee.

The Grand Master's concentration broke as he collapsed to his back in pain. Jacen fell to his knees, coughing furiously before inhaling lungfuls of precious air, even as he winced from the pain that his back took during the fight. He then stood up and walked over to his downed and wailing uncle, where he grabbed the lightsaber hilt and deactivated the blade.

Jacen then stomped Luke right in the face, knocking him unconscious before he could give the wounded man a chance to use any of his Force abilities against him.


	23. Chapter 22

Ves held Ben's hand as they walked the corridors of the _Omen_, the ancient Sith dreadnaught that brought all of the ancestors of the Lost Tribe of the Sith's human members to Kesh, in the planet's vast Temple. Ves and Ben's walk was slow and plodding, but the former knew that it had to be that way for the latter as he unconsciously soaked in the dark side energies that permeated both the ship and Temple.

And that was all the while he was still high on his most recent dose of the acid-marijuana combination that Ves gave him.

"This place has a great history to us, Ben," Ves said during a trip down one corridor. "What had stranded our ancestors, what had robbed them of the opportunity to carry out their mission for Naga Sadow, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Kesh had become their home, and it has been ours for thousands of years."

She stopped them both in their tracks and turned Ben toward her by his shoulders. "Can you feel it yet, Ben? Can you feel the history around us? The Lost Tribe's birthright? It was our destiny to make this our home, as the Force willed it, even if our ancestors didn't believe it, or know it, at first.

"This can be yours, too, Ben, if you join me, if you join _us_. The dark side is not the poison that you have been led to believe; you've been around us for quite some time now. You know that we're good people who only want what's best for the galaxy, just as I want what's best for you."

Ben's eyes appeared to be glazed over by the haze of the combo he was on. But there was a glimmer in those eyes that Ves took to be at least a child-like understanding of his surroundings and circumstances, and a passive acceptance of what was happening.

Ves saw no resistance in him at all.

"I want this, Ves," he said. "I want to be with you. I want to be with the Lost Tribe. There is no... true darkness here. This... is a beautiful... place. Like you. You're everything I could ever want; and if your people can... give me that, then... I will join."

Ves smiled. "Good. Good." She stroked one side of his face. "But we need to give you more time, Ben. Don't worry, though; you will be part of the Lost Tribe sooner than you think." Her hand moved down his face and ran across his tunic until it finally reached his belt.

With that understanding between them, they moved to the nearest bedchamber in the dreadnaught.

Then, for the next hour, the two of them committed an act that would not be considered sacred within the confines of Kesh's Sith Temple. However, they did clean up after themselves and left virtually no physical evidence of their indiscretion in the bedchamber before they left.

However, little did either of them know that their most recent bout of intercourse would produce more evidence than either of them would have wanted.

. . .

When Jedi Master Kyp Durron entered the police station, he was guided to the room where Grand Master Luke Skywalker and Jedi Knight Jacen Solo were being held by two police officers.

"How'd you manage to contain them?" Kyp asked his escorts.

"We have a few Force cages," one of the cops explained. "They had been lying dormant with us for a few decades after they were last used to imprison some Jedi who violated our laws here. You were lucky that they still had any power in them after so much time in disuse."

"There were Jedi who violated laws here?" Kyp asked. "Are you sure they weren't Sith or... you know what, never mind, I don't wanna know right now. Just show me."

Soon, they reached the specialized room that had contained the police station's Force cages.

"Kyp!" Luke cried from inside the cage that kept him from being able to use any of his abilities. He sat on the floor of the cage with a bacta patch wrapped around the wound that Jacen had told Kyp about and a bloodied nose. "You have to help me! Kill Jacen! He's not who he says he is! He's Darth Caedus! He's Caedus!"

"But... Master Skywalker," Kyp said carefully, "Caedus is dead. He was Jacen's clone, remember? It was proven by-"

"The tests were lies, Kyp! They were all lies! Let me out of here! Let me kill him! Let me kill Jacen! Mara! Ben! Oh, why?! Come back to me! Help!"

As Luke continued to rant and rave from inside his cage, Kyp looked at Jacen, who returned his stare with one of concern and sadness from his own confinement.

"I wanna talk to your captain," he said to the cops.

"This way, then, sir," the officer who explained the Force cages said with a wave back to where they came from.

A few minutes later, Kyp met with the police captain, who reluctantly agreed to allow Jacen out of his cell after being told that he was the father of the Queen Mother herself.

Once Jacen was out of his cell, Kyp crossed his arms across his chest before he spoke to the Knight.

"Okay, I'm gonna need more details than what you gave me in our last holocomm, Jacen," Kyp said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose in concern and frustration. "Tell me everything that happened."

After Jacen elucidated everything that occurred between his and Luke's arrival on Kavan to the end of their brief fight, he went on to explain, "Then the police showed up and I told them everything, including why I had to take off from the spaceport without proper clearance. Once I told them about Uncle Luke's derangement, they wasted no time in bringing us here and putting us both in our cages. Of course, they, thankfully, allowed me a holocomm call with you, and they told me that the _Jade Shadow_'s been impounded "

"Well, now that I'm here," Kyp said, "do you think we should visit the site of where Master Skywalker fell for this trap?"

"If we're gonna do that, we need to be extra careful," Jacen said.

"Obviously," Kyp said. "And, hopefully, we'll be able to find some way to reverse what happened to your uncle. Until then, he remains in that cage."

"Agreed."

It didn't take long afterwards until Jacen and Kyp were allowed to leave the station after answering a few more questions for the cops. They then set off to where Luke and Jacen fought by taking a hovertaxi.

Once the two Jedi arrived, Jacen pointed to the sewer that Luke jumped out from. "There," he told Kyp.

The Jedi Master nodded and wordlessly waved at Jacen to lead the way.

But right as Jacen took a few steps forward, he stopped abruptly.

"What is it?" Kyp asked worriedly.

Jacen didn't answer; instead, in response to what he just felt through the Force, he looked up and off to the right.

He caught the faintest whir of movement from the window of an apartment.

"Master Durron," Jacen said, "do you sense any lifeforms in that apartment over there, particularly on that floor? Even a mouse of something?"

Kyp narrowed his eyes as he concentrated on the building that Jacen indicated. A moment later, he said with suspicion, "No. I don't."

"Neither do I," Jacen said. "At least not right now. But I think I saw something."

"Let's investigate then," Kyp said.

Without hesitation, the Jedi Master used a powerful Force-shove on the floor that Jacen previously pointed out to create a sizable hole for them to enter. The two Jedi then leaped up one at a time, with Kyp leading Jacen, and then they started to look around.

"Hold on," Jacen said with narrowed eyes. "I think I... Got it."

He then teleported out of that room and right in front of the door that led outside the apartment

And standing right in front of him was the same Sith who gave Luke the datapad that led him and Jacen here to Kavan; the dark sider had apparently been stopped dead in his tracks at Jacen's sudden appearance.

"Talk," Jacen simply said.

But instead of doing that, the Sith whipped out his lightsaber from his belt and activated it. Jacen, likewise, had his own up and active, and the two immediately began clashing as they stayed in place.

Half a minute into the duel, however, Kyp leaped down from the stairway from behind the Sith and had his own lightsaber active and ready.

The Sith, however, swiftly turned from Jacen so that he could properly face both the Master and the Knight as he parried away both of their attacks.

Yet it only took another half-minute before the Sith was promptly disarmed by a lightsaber strike from Kyp, who managed to slash his and Jacen's opponent's hilt. Jacen then punched the Sith right in the face with his free hand, downing him.

Jacen then brought the tip of his blade close to the Sith's face and repeated, "Talk."

The Sith allowed himself a moment to compose himself before he started to chuckle.

"Foolish Jedi," he growled. "Do you seriously hope to find a remedy for what happened to your precious Grand Master?" He chuckled again. "What he's just undergone is an irreversible process that's permanently affected his mind."

While Jacen looked instantly dismayed, Kyp appeared to be a bit more skeptical.

"Irreversible, huh?" the Jedi Master asked. "Well, tell us about it anyway; I'd like to know just how hopeless it is to bring him back from whatever you did to him."

"Oh, I did nothing," the Sith replied. "My Masters are the perpetrators of your Master's current mental state. They had performed a ceremony at the very place where his wife died; it conjured up the darkness that affected that very location and exacerbated it to prey on and exploit the negative feelings of Luke Skywalker."

"Only him?" Kyp asked.

"He was the husband of the one who died at the very coordinates I sent him to, was he not?" the Sith retorted. "The trap that was laid for my Masters was specialized for him and only him, and that was because of the deep connection that he had to his wife. If anyone else were to go where he went, it would be as if there were nothing there in the Force at all. So you won't be able to discover anything for yourselves down in that sewer."

"Mara Jade Skywalker was my aunt," Jacen pointed out with some hope in his tone. "I had a deep personal connection to her, too."

"But not as deep as your uncle's," the Sith countered. "What they had was something special, and that site's connection to her death, in turn, provided a metaphysical connection made specifically for Luke Skywalker. So, again, you won't be able to feel anything when you go where he went."

"We'll see about that," Kyp said. "You're coming with us."

Later, after Jacen and Kyp brought their quarry back to the police station and placed him in a Force cage well away from Luke, the Sith said to the Knight and Master over Luke's ravings, "You're wasting your time."

Neither Jacen nor Kyp listened; they left the Sith to smirk at Luke, who didn't seem to notice his presence given the perpetual feeling of rage toward Jacen that permeated his soul.

Once Jacen and Kyp returned to where they apprehended the Sith and finally went into the sewers, they walked to the location where Luke had fallen prey to the Sith Force trap and where Mara had died.

But neither Jedi felt anything at all.

"No, no, no, no," Jacen said with panic. He was now turning in circles, trying to find anything in the physical world or through his Force senses that could give him any clue as to how to help his uncle. "There's gotta be something here! Anything!"

"I'm trying to find it, too," Kyp said with a more calmed tone. Yet he also sounded slightly distressed by the lack of anything substantial that any of his senses could locate.

But after several minutes of futile searching, Jacen slunk down along one of the sewer's walls.

"We can't do anything, Kyp," he said with despair in his voice and tears in his eyes. "It really is irreversible."

"No, no, that's not true, Jacen," Kyp replied. "Even if we can't find anything here, maybe Tekli can do something on Shedu Maad or-"

"Kyp," Jacen interrupted sharply. "The Sith have broken him; I can feel it. He won't ever be the same man again."

"Jacen, you know how the Sith are," Kyp said as he knelt down toward the Knight. "Lies and deceit are part of their game, and so is sowing the seeds of despair and hopelessness. We can't let them win by giving into that hopelessness, so don't you start."

But Jacen didn't look convinced; he looked away from Kyp and began to sob quietly.

"Hey, hey, you're not a toddler anymore," Kyp said as he grabbed Jacen's chin. "Now's not the time to cry. And even if it really is hopeless to save your uncle, Jacen, there's still too much for you to do before you start wallowing in your pity. Ben is out there, in the Sith's clutches, and the more time that passes as they do whatever they're doing to him, the less likely it'll be before he can be saved, either. So get up and keep going.

"I'll take your uncle back to Shedu Maad You take that Sith with you and do whatever you can with him to find Ben. Don't you quit on me now, man; don't you quit on me now."

Kyp then released Jacen's jaw, stood up, and headed back the way he came.

Jacen finally stood up long after Kyp was gone. He wasted no more time before he headed back to the police station, not caring how badly he smelled.

When he got to the room with the Force cages, and saw that Luke was gone, no doubt having been taken by Kyp, he walked up the cage with the Sith in it and said, "You and I are going for a little trip."


	24. Chapter 23

"_Another_ false alarm?!" Jag asked furiously. "That's the third one this week!"

"Yes, Head of State Fel," the meter-long holographic representation of Admiral Vitor Reige replied stoically. "This one diverted two of our Star Destroyers from the Chintaka system to the Fuyias system."

"And as a result," Jag said, as if he heard this story before, "the forces that were left behind at Fuyias II lost a significant amount of their forces to a Mandalorian raid while the forces sent to Chintaka V saw that everything was just fine."

"That is correct, sir."

Jag sighed in frustration. "Admiral Reige, see to it that our encryption protocols, security clearance codes, everything in our military communications must be doubled; do everything you can. I want to see no more of these false alarms that are allowing our forces to bleed away from these Mando surprise attacks!"

"I will do what I can, sir."

"Let's hope that what you can do is what we'll need." He then cut off the signal before sitting back in his chair and letting out an even bigger frustrated sigh than before.

But before he could decide whether or not he should bury himself back into his work of administering the Imperial Remnant or allow himself to just take a nap as a brief reprieve from all of these politics and this recent war, his intercom chimed.

"Head of State Fel," his secretary's voice said, "your wife is here to see you."

"Send her in," he replied.

Moments later, Jaina entered his office and gave him a loving smile. "Hi, Jag. How are you today?"

He returned her smile as he straightened up in his seat. "Better now that you're here; but not by much, if I'm being honest."

Jaina's smile dropped. "The Mandos are really giving you some trouble now, huh?"

"For a civilization stationed around one planet," Jag said, "they really know how to stretch their forces. Not surprising, though, considering that they're a military society; imagine if they had the numbers of the Remnant. They'd be unstoppable with those _beskar_ ships."

"But they're not completely indestructible," Jaina pointed out.

"No, just mostly indestructible."

"You shouldn't be giving yourself over to cynicism, Jag," Jaina said.

Jag frowned at her. "If you're in a job like this where you have no choice but to sit all day behind a desk, even you'd get cynical, Jaina."

She gave him a conceding look. "Maybe I would. After all, I haven't gotten any luck reaching out to Mirta. I think the fact that I'm married to you may have something to do with that."

Jag raised an eyebrow. "I hope you're not considering a divorce." His tone was only half-joking.

"Oh, no, if my parents can stay together after everything they've been though and the things that came their way, I can put up with some politics in our marriage."

Jag grinned again. "Best thing I've heard today." His smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "Still, the Remnant's not gonna win this new war through the power of love; at least not by itself, anyway. Did you find any evidence as to whether or not Belok Rhal and his mercs were the ones to kill Boba Fett instead of my government?"

Jaina shook her head. "No luck there, either."

Jag let out yet one more frustrated sigh. "Well, let's hope Tahiri's doing better."

. . .

As if by the will of the Force, not two days after Tahiri got out of the hospital on Gleros, she and Partner managed to track down the missing Imperial Inspector Velias on a pastoral-seeming moon just outside of Remnant space.

Of course, it had been due to some work that Partner conducted while Tahiri was still recovering in the hospital; he found that, indeed, the bomb residue that destroyed the forensics building on Gleros was of a type used by Mandalorians to ensure an efficient form of destruction.

And as it just so happened, Partner had a few favors he was owed by some Mandos who weren't as loyal to Belok Rhal as they were letting on (monetary compensation only went so far even among Mandos). Those mercs couldn't provide any concrete proof that it was Rhal who had Boba Fett killed, but they were each willing to drop the names of a few locations where a mole working for the Mandos, like Velias, could be hiding after going missing.

This moon, Candrous VII, was the most likely place in which Velias would hide.

On a bright and sunny day on this part of the moon, Tahiri and Partner found him in a farm in a valley not far from where the Mandalorian parked his Firespray. The former Jedi and her mercenary companion had to wait for a little less than a minute after the former knocked on the door of Velias's house.

But when Velias finally answered, the first thing he received was a punch to the face by Tahiri that knocked him to the floor. The former Jedi then used the Force to drag him bodily out into the open so that she could place a boot squarely on his throat.

"Where's the _beskar_?" Tahiri asked. Her tone was almost too calm for what she was feeling.

"What?" Velias gurgled from beneath her heel. "I have no idea what you're-" He struggled for breath as pressure was once again placed upon his neck.

"Okay, okay, okay!" Velias managed to blurt out. "It-it was taken away! Diverted from the rest of the convoy that was headed for Gleros!"

"Where?" Tahiri asked.

"I don't know where!" Again, pressure was applied to his neck. When it was lightened up, he continued with, "All I know is that it was given to a Mando convoy. They never said what they were going to do with all that armor."

"If I were to show you a few holopics of some friends of mine," Partner said, "would you be able to ID 'em?"

"If they were the ones we gave the _beskar_, then... sure," Velias said with the same panic that he had since this conversation began.

Partner then pulled out his datapad and opened up a file before turning it to face down at Velias. He then went through a series of images that appeared to be taken from guerrilla-style shots that displayed various helmeted and armored Mandalorians in different locations and performing several actions, whether it was relaxing, being in a firefight, or some other type of action.

Velias was able to identify about five of the Mandalorians who were there.

"We got what we need here," Partner told Tahiri as he replaced the 'pad back to his belt.

"We're not done yet," Tahiri said darkly.

After she took her boot off of Velias's throat, she used the Force to lift him into the air by his throat. Then, with her other hand, she broke every one of his bones in a slow, excruciating way that prompted a pained and gurgled howl from Velias each time.

His neck was the last thing Tahiri broke; she then allowed his corpse to drop to the ground.

She turned to look at Partner with a satisfied look in her eyes. "Now we can go."


	25. Chapter 24

Dr. Ruik hoped that the thirteenth time would be the charm before he once again pulled the lever. And once again, the modified midi-chlorians coursed into the body of the thirteenth subject, a destitute human woman who only wanted the best for her family.

At this point, the scream she gave was something that Ruik found himself getting used to. By no means was he completely devoid of sympathy or empathy for the latest subject, but he thought that if his apathy were to become any stronger, he might as well be an emotionless droid.

For a brief moment, he wondered if any of his assistants in the lab felt or wondered the same.

Once the subject received the latest dose of midi-chlorians, she lapsed into unconsciousness; again, just like all the others before her.

But when she woke up without screaming, Ruik actually felt shocked; and he was too mesmerized by the sight of the woman looking around at her surroundings with a sense of wonder and some lingering fear.

"Please tell me that's it," she said with a hopeful tone.

Ruik gave himself a moment before he said, "You... you're still alive."

"Yes, I am," she said with a nod. "Can I go now?"

"Well, before you do," Ruik said as he and Plesar approached her to disconnect her from the midi-chlorian machine, "we still have to run some tests on you."

"What kind of tests?" she asked with a downtrodden tone.

"We'll get to that once we free you of all this," Ruik said just as he and Plesar reached her. He then turned and called to one of his other assistants, "Clear that workbench now."

Once the subject was disconcerted and on her feet, Ruik pointed to the workbench that he ordered to be cleared.

"I want you to reach out to that workbench," he said to the subject, "and, with your mind, lift it up."

The subject looked at him in askance. "What, you mean like a Jedi?"

"Exactly like a Jedi," Ruik said with a nod.

"B-but I don't know how to do that," she replied.

"Don't worry, just give yourself some time," Ruik said. "There's no rush. Just close your eyes, lift up your hand to that workbench, and then imagine it levitating itself into the air. Deep breaths all the while."

"Well... if you say so," the subject replied nervously before she complied.

Ruik didn't blame her for her doubt, considering that he himself had only had the vaguest of ideas regarding how the Jedi trained their pupils; given how little information was known about them to the general public, he really only assumed that this was the beginning of how the Jedi did things.

So he allowed the subject a full minute before he would offer her more encouragement.

But just ten seconds before he would have spoken up, the workbench suddenly bucked.

Everyone in the lab, including Ruik and the subject, looked at the workbench in surprise.

"Do it again!" Ruik exclaimed.

The subject wordlessly closed her eyes again and repeated the motion.

This time, it only took her forty seconds.

And also this time, the workbench didn't just buck; it began to float a few inches in the air before it was promptly dropped back down.

"One more time!" Ruik exclaimed. "You're getting better."

It only took the subject twenty seconds, and the workbench floated even higher in the air and stayed there for a full minute.

Then the subject gently levitated the bench down to the ground with barely a thud.

Nearly everyone in the lab started to cheer; the subject, meanwhile, appeared to be in a state of shock that no one else seemed to notice.

"Plesar, call Daala!" Ruik said to the Devaronian. "Tell her we-"

He was cut off from saying anymore when the subject screamed in pain and inadvertently drew the attention of everyone else to her. And what cheer they had figuratively melted into horror as the woman herself literally melted into a semi-fluid on the floor; it was only after her screaming, which had quickly turned into a pained gurgle, had stopped did everyone realize that she was dead.

"Plesar," Ruik said, "belay that last order; we still have some tests to conduct."

. . .

It didn't take much to convince the captain of the police department to let Jacen take the Force cage that had the Sith in it; given that Jacen was verified as being the father of Queen Mother Allana, the captain probably didn't want to be told by Her Majesty herself to let Jacen take the Sith and the cage he was in.

It took a few hours to get the cage transferred from the station to the _Jade Shadow_ so that it could be properly installed in Luke's sleeping quarters. And during that time, the Sith was kept under close watch by his police captors and Jacen while still being unable to use the Force because of the stuncuffs that bound his wrists together. Then, when all was said and done, Jacen had taken the _Shadow_ off of Kavan and out of the system with his caged Sith prisoner.

By the time the ship was in hyperspace, Jacen decided to pay a visit to that prisoner, who sneered at him from within his cell.

"Got anything to say to me?" Jacen asked with his arms across his chest.

"I was actually waiting for you to tell me what you were intending to do to me," the Sith replied. "But since you asked, Jedi, I have nothing to say to you."

"But you will," Jacen responded darkly. "Even if my uncle can't be cured of whatever your Masters did to him, you are going to tell me where my cousin is."

The Sith raised a mocking eyebrow. "You intend to torture me for that information? I didn't know the Jedi were willing to resort to that; maybe we misjudged your worthiness in wielding the power you have."

"I don't intend on torturing you for information," Jacen said evenly. "Besides, I'd think that, as a Sith, you would've been trained to resist the most brutal forms of torture without letting any information slip from your tongue."

The Sith chuckled lightly. "What other course do you have? Do you intend to turn me to the light side of the Force, Jedi? Make me see the error of my ways?" His smirk dropped into one of contempt. "It'd be a greater waste of time than when you tried to find anything down in that sewer on Kavan."

"I don't intend on convincing you to turn your back on your ways, either," Jacen said.

Now the Sith looked curious. "Then what do you intend to do to even try to get me to talk?"

Jacen grinned. "You just wait and see."

The Sith scowled. "That doesn't scare me, Jedi; you're bluffing."

"I'll let you think that then," Jacen said, "for now."

He then turned around and left the room, leaving the Sith alone to ponder whether or not he was bluffing.

Indeed, he wasn't; because after his next drop out of hyperspace for a course correction, he set the coordinates for the quickest way to the Kathol Rift.


	26. Chapter 25

During the hyperspace transit to their next destination, Partner was once again playing a game on his datapad while Tahiri sat in contemplation over what she did back on Candrous VII.

"Partner?" she asked after a while.

"Yeah?" he responded; he didn't even look away from his 'pad.

And that was just fine with Tahiri.

"Do you think I went too far on Velias back there?" she inquired.

"Do you think that?"

"I'm starting to."

"Can't take it back now." Partner's tone was still casual.

"No, I can't. But you didn't answer my question."

"My answer would be as relevant as yours; no matter what you feel now, the deed's been done."

"Then forget relevance; you think we should have brought him in alive, don't you?"

After a moment, Partner set down his 'pad on his ship's dashboard and turned to look at Tahiri.

"That was obviously an option," he conceded. "Then again, bringing him back and leaving him to Imp authorities would have taken time out of our investigation, which is what we're being paid to do. So killing him was more expedient."

"And that's what matters to you, huh?"

"Yeah," he responded with a straightforward nod.

Tahiri opened her mouth, as if she were about to judge him. But she then let out a defeated sigh and looked away from Partner.

"I guess I shouldn't judge you," she admitted. "After all, I'm the one who killed Velias in cold blood."

"Good to see you're self-aware," Partner remarked. "Can I get back to my game now? We still have a lot of time to kill and I think we've exhausted this line of conversation."

Tahiri was about to say, "Yeah, sure go ahead," before she stopped herself. Then she actually said, "You know what, no; don't go back to your game 'cause I don't think we've exhausted this line of conversation."

Partner let out an audible sigh. "You make it sound like I'm the one who killed Velias."

"You let me," Tahiri pointed out with some anger in her tone. "I told you back in the hospital, and you let me."

"So now you're blaming me for not stopping you?"

"Well... yes. Yes, I am."

"Is that your way of shifting responsibility away from your actions, Veila? By blaming me for not stopping you?"

"I'm not shifting responsibility away from anything, _Partner_," she said as if his moniker were poison. "I'm holding you accountable for your own actions."

"So what are you gonna do about it? Hmm? You gonna tell Fel about your cold-blooded murder of Velias, because you'll have to if you're gonna hold me accountable for not stopping you. And what do you think he'll do? Just let you walk and continue with this investigation like nothing ever happened? Oh, sure, Velias may have been a traitor who killed a lot of Imp lives just to cover his own ass, but Fel won't let that stop him from having you tried for murder. And even if a jury thinks you're a hero for icing Velias and a judge rules that you go free, I still don't think Fel can trust you after that. Hell, if nothing else, you failed to abide by Imperial laws, which would have dictated that you'd have had to bring Velias in so that he can be questioned by the proper authorities instead of being interrogated by a coupla' mercs the way he was."

"I'm not a merc," she growled. "I'm not like you."

"Oh, no; you're much worse."

Tahiri then used the Force to shove Partner back along the bulkhead behind him, pinning him there.

"Don't you _dare_ try to judge me, Mando scum!" she yelled.

"Danger! Danger!" came an automated voice from the Firespray's control console.

A hole opened up in the cockpit's ceiling; less than a second later, a yellow gas instantly filled the room.

Tahiri didn't even get a chance to use any of her Force abilities to counter the knockout gas before she collapsed unconscious to her seat. The gas was then instantly vented from the cockpit as Partner, whose suit had been sealed by the gas's effects, composed himself; he then bent down to grab Tahiri's ankle and dragged her away to one of his ship's holding cells.

With that out of the way, he returned to the cockpit to drop his Firespray out of hyperspace. He then turned it around and plotted a course back for Bastion.

. . .

"I take it that young Ben is adjusting well to life here on Kesh, Tyro Khai?" Grand Lord Vol asked. His tone made it clear that he was, so far, pleased with the results that he was seeing.

He and Vestara Khai were standing in the backyard of the latter's homestead, where they watched Jedi Knight—or, rather, former Jedi Knight—Ben Skywalker soaring above them on Vestara's own pet uvak, Tikk. Young Ben's excited laughs could be heard even from the ground, and Tikk was obviously enjoying the ride, too.

"Much better, and much sooner, than even I expected, Grand Lord Vol," Vestara replied. "I even managed to stop giving him the acid-marijuana combination; I can sense that his mind has been altered so that he has become accustomed to our way of life. At this point, with his loyalty to the Tribe, I doubt he would even hesitate to kill his father if they were to meet again. After all, if Tikk would be willing to have Ben ride him, I'd say that's a safe bet he's firmly on our side now."

"I sense that Ben's mind has been altered, as well," Vol said optimistically. "Hopefully, when he gets back to the point that he can properly respond to a shikkar at his throat, he will indeed be one of us as well. You know, I was thinking that if Ben were to really join us in a sober state of mind, he would be a Saber immediately; after all, he was a Jedi Knight. It wouldn't make too much sense to reduce him to a Tyro with his skills and experiences, even if his knowledge of our people and our history is still very limited."

"I suppose that would be fair," Vestara replied noncommittally.

Vol grinned down at her. "Of course, your success in converting him could mean that you get to be elevated to the rank of Saber yourself. It would be quite an achievement for someone of your age, Tyro Khai."

Now Vestara looked much more hopeful. "I would be honored, Grand Lord Vol."

"My Lord!"

Vol and Vestara turned at the sound of High Lord Workan approaching.

"What is it, Lord Workan?" Vol asked.

"Saber Degron hasn't reported in as scheduled several times now," Workan reported. "Let me show you." He then presented a datapad to Vol, which the latter took and read from.

The Grand Lord looked at the information presented there and found that, indeed, Saber Odrok Degron had missed multiple check-ins in a row that were meant to confirm his status. He didn't even report in to Workan to let him know whether or not he left Kavan after Luke Skywalker successfully fell into that trap in the sewer.

"You believe he's in trouble, Lord Workan?" Vol asked as he returned the 'pad to his subordinate.

"I believe so, My Lord."

"And because he was your responsibility, you wish to go after him?"

"If you would allow it, My Lord."

"I demand it," Vol replied with urgency in his tone. "Leave for Kavan immediately; take two Sabers with you and retrace Saber Degron's steps from there. Report back to me by this time tomorrow on the status of your search."

Workan nodded and turned to hurry off to do his duty for the Lost Tribe.

"Saber Degron?" Vestara asked with some concern after Workan was gone. "My Lord, may I ask what's wrong?"

"You have concern for Saber Degron?"

"I owe him a debt of gratitude after he saved me from Hapes," Vestara explained.

"Ah, yes, when you feared you were in danger of discovery by Ben's cousin, Jacen Solo. Very well, I suppose it would benefit you to know, since Saber Degron was assigned on a mission that was tangentially related to you and Ben."

Vol then went on to explain that Degron's mission was to lead Luke Skywalker and Jacen Solo to the world of Kavan from the planet Andalia so that they could be thrown off the trail of finding Ben. It was on Kavan that a trap had been sprung on Grand Master Skywalker that had exploited and magnified his dormant grief and guilt for his wife's death and compelled him to try to kill Solo.

"Of course, Ben's father very nearly succeeded in killing Solo," Vol went on to explain. "But the Jedi Knight barely survived and defeated his uncle. Saber Degron's last report explained that he would stay on Kavan to monitor Solo's actions."

"I see," Vestara said when Vol concluded the story. "My Lord, may I ask to join Lord Workan in the search for Saber Degron?"

"What about Ben's indoctrination?"

"He can come with us," Vestara suggested.

"Tyro Khai, I have said that Ben's mind has been altered," Vol stated, "but I don't believe it's been altered enough to allow him to leave Kesh and risk an encounter with his cousin that can undo all the work you've put in here."

"My Lord, I don't believe seeing his cousin will undo any of the work. In fact, I believe it will seal Ben's fate with us."

"How so?"

Vestara then went on to explain the feeling of hatred and resentment that Ben had toward Jacen because of his psychological inability to disassociate his cousin from his clone, Darth Caedus, who had killed Ben's mother.

"If Ben had this thought process when he was still a Jedi Knight, My Lord-"

"He would undoubtedly have it magnified now that he's been indoctrinated to us. Yes, I see the wisdom of your plan, Tyro Khai. Or should I say Saber Khai?"

Vestara's expression instantly turned into one of absolute happiness; Vol even saw tears of joy leaking from her eyes.

But the Grand Lord didn't admonish her for displaying such emotion so openly. Instead, he brought his commlink up from his belt and called up Workan.

"Yes, My Lord?" the High Lord responded.

"Sith Saber Vestara Khai will be one of the two Sabers to join you, Lord Workan," Vol declared.

There was a brief moment of silence, as if Workan was reeling from the announcement of the sudden promotion that Vestara had just received, before he replied, "Of course, My Lord. Will that be all?"

"Not quite," Vol responded. "I'll be back with you in a minute, Lord Workan." He then cut off the call but didn't replace his commlink.

"Saber Khai, if you would be so kind as to call Ben down from the sky," Vol said as if it were a polite request; he was in such a genial mood that it allowed him to be more friendly than usual to a subordinate such as Vestara.

She nodded before she called up, "Ben! Hey, Ben! Come down here!"

"Okay, Ves!" he called back. He then guided Tikk back down to land near her and Vol.

After he dismounted from the uvak and approached the two Sith, he asked, "What is it, Ves?"

"Grand Lord Vol would like to speak to you, Ben," she said.

"Hello, Ben. I'm honored to finally meet you." He then reached out a hand.

Ben clasped it without hesitation. "As am I, Lord Vol."

When Vol broke off the handshake, he said, "Ben, you will be going with Vestara on a very special trip."

"Oh? Where to?" Ben asked.

Vestara and Vol looked at each other; the former shook her head. Vol's nod confirmed that he would accept her decision.

"It'll be a surprise, Ben," Vestara said. "One I'm sure you'll love."


	27. Chapter 26

"Chief Daala, Chief Bwua'tu is here to see you," the voice of Daala's secretary said over the intercom. "He's not scheduled."

"Send him in anyway," Daala replied after a thoughtful moment.

Seconds later, the Galactic Alliance's Chief of Naval Operations Nek Bwua'tu walked into the office and said formally, "Good afternoon, Chief Daala. May I please have a seat?"

"By all means," Daala said, mimicking his formal tone. Once Bwua'tu was seated, she asked, "Now what can I do for you, Nek?"

Bwua'tu then held up a datapad and slid it across Daala's desk. "I want a little elaboration on these fleet movements you've been making me assign. You see, when I took a little once-over at them, I couldn't help but notice that you're having me divert several dozen Star Destroyers at all of these strategically-"

"Cut to the chase, Nek."

Bwua'tu composed himself before he said, "I just wanted to know if you actually intend on starting a war with the Hapes Consortium."

Daala allowed a tense moment to pass before she asked, "And if I am?"

Bwua'tu sighed. "Natasi, I know how much you want to kill the Jedi. But they pose no threat to you since they fled from your jurisdiction. And going to war with the Consortium isn't going to help the GA in any way I see."

"I deal with the politics, Nek," Daala replied evenly. "You're the one in charge of ordering my Navy if we go to war."

"You mean _when_ we go to war."

Daala gave him a slight scowl. "Nek, I don't think I need to remind you of your vow of _krevi_ to the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. You stood by Darth Caedus when he was running this government like the tyrant he was and waging that pointless war with, well, basically everyone who was important in the galaxy. We only need to focus on the Consortium while the Mandalorians deal with the Imperial Remnant, and I don't think the Confederation will care all that much. So you let me worry about what's going to help the GA while you do your duty, whether it's on the front lines or consulting with a bunch of admirals and generals on fleet tactics."

Bwua'tu was silent for a moment before he finally stood up and said, "Very well; by my vow of _krevi_, which sees that I put my loyalty to the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances over myself and even over my own species, I will do as you ask for as long as you are Chief of State of this government, Chief Daala."

"Good," Daala said. "Will that be all, Nek?"

"It will."

"Then you're dismissed."

. . .

"Try anything stupid," Jacen said to the Sith, "and you're dead." The Jedi patted the lightsaber at his own belt as a wordless reminder that his caged "friend" was presently lacking a physical weapon of his own.

Jacen then deactivated the Force cage and let the Sith out. The freed prisoner regarded his Jedi captor warily before he asked, "So why did you...?"

He trailed off as he began looking around the quarters with a fearful expression. The Sith then raised his hands up to his face before regarding the rest of his body in horror.

"What's going on?!" he cried out. "What are you doing to me?!" He then began to pat away all across his body at invisible—and nonexistent—threats to his life.

What the Sith was going through right now was an intense episode of hallucinations involving insects, arachnids, and all other manner of creepy-crawlies that were generally considered unpleasant by many beings' standards. This was an effect of the Kathol Rift, where Jacen had learned the teleportation technique and flow-walking from the Aing-Tii monk Tadar'Ro. The hallucinatory effect that people who traveled here would endure was amplified when one was Force-sensitive.

It wasn't that Jacen wasn't experiencing any hallucinations himself; he was. Only he learned to ignore the hallucinations and let them play out, knowing that they wouldn't hurt him unless his mind let them hurt him.

That was definitely not something he was ever going to let this Sith, or any other, know about.

"I won't tell you," Jacen said, "but I can make them all go away as soon as you tell me where my cousin is."

"I can't do that!" the Sith responded even as he continued to swat and pat away at every part of his body that he could reach. "The Grand Lord could personally kill me for that!"

"Grand Lord Vol, right? Yeah, don't think I forgot that little bit of info from Andalia. But if you tell me where Ben is, I can personally guarantee that neither him nor any of your Masters will find out that you told me; I'll be gracious enough to tell them that it was through some detective work that had nothing to do with you."

"Okay, okay! I'll tell you where your cousin is! He's on a world called Ziost; that's all I know."

"Ziost, huh? That's where Vestara Khai is, too?"

"Yes, yes, that's where she is, too! Now stop this right now!"

"No, I don't think I will," Jacen replied simply.

"What?!" the Sith exclaimed.

"I can sense through your fear that you're still lying. And just for that, I'm gonna add more bugs and arachnids to the mix. I've always been good with animals, you know." Jacen then lifted a hand toward his prisoner and managed to take hold of his own hallucinations through the Force so that they would be added to the Sith's delusions..

The dark sider's screams increased with intensity and his actions became even more frantic to the point that he fell to the deck, rolling around like an idiot; Jacen thought he actually started to cry like a little girl, so he had to stifle his own laughter.

"Kesh! Our homeworld is Kesh! That's where they are! I forgot the exact coordinates, I swear, but that's the name! Now, please, oh, please, make it stop!"

"Get back into that cage and I'll make them all go away," Jacen demanded.

The Sith hurried back to the cage as if it were sanctuary from torrential rainfall and Jacen reactivated it instantly.

"It's gonna take a few minutes," Jacen said, "but trust me, they'll be gone soon." He then left the quarters at a leisurely pace to return to the _Jade Shadow_'s cockpit.


	28. Chapter 27

For the return trip to Bastion, which took about two days, Tahiri was periodically drugged by Partner—whom she thought might as well be called Traitor now—so that she was kept in a perpetually groggy state; because of this, she was unable to use the Force.

"I could just go all the way and knock you out," the Mandalorian said, "but I don't wanna have to feed you intravenously or change you while you sleep. You'll be eating, drinking, urinating, and defecating at just the right point where you can't try to pin me to a wall with your mind."

The merc was true to his word; she was able to do all that without ever being able to so much as give him a mild shove; and he was never late with the administration of the drug.

Finally, when they returned to Bastion and set down in the Imperial Capital Building's hangar bay, the Mando had brought Tahiri out of his ship with stuncuffs just as they met with Jag, Jaina, and their security escort of four stormtroopers.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Tahiri," Jag said.

Jaina only regarded her friend with sadness in her eyes.

"Take her to a holding cell immediately," Jag ordered two of his troopers.

"Yes, sir," one of them responded. Then he and one of his comrades grabbed Tahiri by either elbow and led her out of the hangar bay.

When Jag and Jaina turned back to the Mandalorian, the latter said, "I hope you have a drug that can keep her unable to use the Force."

"That won't be necessary," Jag said. "Have you ever heard of ysalamiri?"

"I thought they went extinct during the Vong War."

"No, just endangered," Jag replied. "Though we were able to find one and transport it safely here from Myrkr after you called ahead; that should block off Tahiri's powers."

"Good," the Mando said. He then looked to Jaina. "I suppose you'll be my new partner?"

"Yeah," Jaina replied; her tone was still somewhat bitter considering what she heard from the merc about Tahiri killing Velias. "I can help you out in a jam."

"I'll show you what Veila and I found during our little search on our way outta here," the merc said. "Now let's go."

"Just gimme a second," Jaina said.

"I'll be waiting aboard," the Mando said. He then turned and returned to his Firespray.

Jaina then turned to Jag. "Tahiri needs to be brought back to Shedu Maad, Jag. You know this."

"She's not a Jedi anymore, Jaina," Jag argued. "She swore it off; the Jedi Order has no jurisdiction over her. And she killed an Imperial citizen, even if that citizen was a traitor."

"Oh, c'mon, Jag, you're the Head of State, can't you-"

"Don't forget that I have an entire Moff Council to answer to. If I try to release Tahiri into Jedi custody, they'll-"

"Forget the Moff Council, you can overrule them! What, are you scared of them turning on you?"

"If it weren't wartime, I could probably handle it, Jaina. But if I do this, they could take advantage of the distraction and-"

"Tahiri needs help, Jag! Just like Uncle Luke needs help! And she's not gonna get it behind an Imperial prison!"

"She can have visitors, you know. Tekli, you, Lowie, you can all stop by and-"

"That won't be enough and you know that! There's a difference to what Imperial visitation hours can allow to what the Jedi Temple can allow!"

"Jaina, listen, when this war's over-"

"No, no, don't you use this war as an excuse to-"

"I know you feel bad about Tahiri, but now isn't the best time! I can keep her as comfortable as I can, but-"

"Jag, if she isn't helped by her friends, she'll wallow in the dark side for the rest of her life!"

"Tahiri made her choice, Jaina! I made you very aware of how she felt since Daala turned on the Jedi, and she turned down any opportunity from you, Lowie, or any of the others! She had her chances of being helped and she squandered them!"

Jaina regarded Jag with disgust. "So that's it, huh?"

Jag hesitated in his response. "For now, it is. Again, when this war is over, I might be able to get her free while making sure the Moff Council won't try to turn on me for something like abuse of power for nepotism and use it on the public."

"Velias was a traitor! People can't look on Tahiri that badly!"

"But he was still an Imperial citizen who should have been judged by our laws instead of that of a vengeful vigilante; and even if Tahiri isn't seen as a Jedi, people will still look at her as one anyway. And the Moffs could use this as the basis for a vote of no confidence against me, which is something I just can't deal with right now given this war."

"Sounds like a pretty weak basis, if you ask me."

"You'd be surprised how strong they can make it."

Jaina nodded. "When this war is over, huh?"

Jag returned the nod. "Yes."

"Then I'll try to get this war ended as soon as possible for you." She said no more before she turned to join the Mandalorian in his Firespray.

. . .

"You're absolutely sure that he didn't say where he was taking this Sith prisoner?" Workan asked the police captain.

"I didn't even ask," the captain responded. "Quite frankly, I didn't even care. Now why are you so curious about this-"

"Forget this whole conversation," Workan said with a wave of his hand. "Forget me as soon as I walk out of this office."

"I will forget this whole conversation," the woman responded in a dazed tone. "I will forget you as soon as you walk out of this office."

With that, Workan turned around and left.

Once he joined Saber Khai and Ben Skywalker outside of the police station, he relayed what the captain told him.

"Then how are we to find him, Lord Workan?" Khai asked.

Before Workan could come up with an answer, his commlink beeped; he brought it up to answer. "Yes?"

"Lord Workan," came the voice of Saber Noklo Feshla, "I have an urgent communique from Grand Lord Vol himself. He also urges you to bring Saber Khai and Ben Skywalker when you contact him. Please return immediately."

"Acknowledged," Workan replied before he signed off.

Less than half an hour later, Workan, Khai, and Skywalker had all returned to the ChaseMaster _Uvak's Prey_, which was parked in orbit of Kavan. Once Workan was seated in his quarters with Khai and Skywalker standing behind him at either side, he finally opened up a secure holocomm channel with Grand Lord Vol.

"My Master," Workan said with a nod, "you wished to see me and the young ones?"

"Actually, Lord Workan," Vol said with some irritation in his tone, "it isn't I who wishes to see you or the children; it is this man."

The image shifted from Vol's visage to-

"Jacen!"

Both Workan and Khai were startled by young Skywalker's angry outburst at the sight of Jacen Solo's holographic representation.

"Ben, what did they do to you?" Jacen asked, seemingly oblivious to his cousin's anger. "Are you all right?"

"How dare you come back into my life again, you monster?!" Ben shouted; he also seemed oblivious to his cousin's concern for him as he leaned past Workan and leered at his holographic representation. "After you killed my mom and nearly took me from Vestara?!"

Jacen looked confused. "Ben, you know I didn't kill your mom! It was my clone, Caedus!"

"Liar! Liar! Why are you still alive while my mom's dead?! It should've been you, you bastard! It should've been you!"

Jacen looked confusedly from his cousin to Workan and Khai. When he looked at the girl, his eyes narrowed in anger.

"What have you done to him, Khai?" he growled.

"You leave Ves out of this, monster!" Ben cried out.

"Ben, let me handle this," Khai said as calmly as she could.

"No, Ves, I-"

"Get him out of here, Saber Khai," Workan demanded as he indicated Ben with a nod of his head.

"Ben, listen to me!" Solo shouted. "Your father is-"

Workan cut the transmission right there before he looked back over his shoulder at Khai. "I said get him out of here at once, Saber Khai!"

"Yes, My Lord," came the reply.

She then guided Ben, who was too distracted by his anger for his cousin to think straight, out of Workan's quarters. When they were gone, the High Lord reactivated the transmission.

"I hope you can understand that I have some questions, Jedi Solo," Workan said. "Such as what have you done to Sith Saber Degron?"

"He's alive and with me," Solo answered evenly. "And I'm willing to trade him back for my cousin."

Workan raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think we aren't willing to sacrifice one Saber to keep young Ben?"

"Because the alternative is that I transmit a message to the Jedi Temple on Shedu Maad about the location of your homeworld, Kesh," Solo replied simply.

Workan's jaw dropped. "What?!"

"That's right, I know where you are. But I promise not to tell anyone of how to get to your homeworld if you just give me back my cousin."

"How did you find out where we lived?"

"I have my ways."

Workan looked at Solo curiously before sneering. "You somehow successfully tortured the information out of Saber Degron."

"I did no such thing." Solo said that with such a straight face, Workan almost believed it.

"Nice try. You convinced him that you could guarantee his safety and deny his complicity in revealing the location of our homeworld, didn't you?"

"Degron had nothing to do with this, I swear," Solo replied desperately.

Now the tables had turned to Workan's favor.

"Oh, no? Then I suppose I have your word that if you give us back Degron to do with as we please in exchange for your cousin, you won't tell the Jedi Temple of where we live."

"You have my word on it as a Jedi."

Workan actually guffawed. "You're a surprisingly talented liar, Solo! But it's not good enough. You know how I know? It's because of the plain simple fact that you're a Jedi; one of your sacred duties is to the destruction of the Sith, just as one of my sacred duties is to the destruction of your kind. So there's no way I could ever believe that you wouldn't tell anyone at your Jedi Temple of where the Lost Tribe resides! For all I know, you could have even told them of that already!"

Solo gritted his teeth angrily. "All I care about is my cousin and the rest of my family; I'm very flexible of where my loyalties lie."

"Oh, please! Am I really supposed to believe that?! If all you cared about was your family, Solo, you wouldn't be a Jedi!"

Solo growled. "If you harm one hair on Ben's head-"

"If you will excuse me for a few moments."

Workan then cut off the transmission and shifted it back to Grand Lord Vol.

"Did you hear all of that, my Master?" the High Lord asked.

"I did."

"What do you wish to do? Kill young Ben?"

Vol looked off to the side as he contemplated the next course of action. Then he returned his gaze to Workan and said, "No. In fact, we will do as Solo asks."

Workan looked surprised. "My Lord?"

"Oh, don't worry, High Lord Workan. It will not be as he asks. Here is what you will tell him."

When Vol was done, Workan shifted the transmission back to an angry—and worried—Jacen Solo.

"The Grand Lord has decreed that you and Ben are to be reunited," Workan stated.

"But?" Solo asked.

"You will have to meet him... on Kesh."

"I accept."


	29. Chapter 28

"She's completely stable?" Daala asked.

Dr. Ruik nodded enthusiastically. "After she went through the process and emerged from it intact, we ran a few microcellular stability scans. When her vitals indicated that she was in no danger from structural collapse, it was then that we tested her for the Force. She's strong with it, Chief Daala."

Daala then turned to the woman about whom she and Ruik were just talking; she was light-skinned with dark hair and was around the Chief of State's age, height, and build.

And, just like everyone else who underwent the midi-chlorian injection process in this lab, she was simply a poor and destitute individual who only wanted to help her family.

Daala approached the woman with a smile that she normally reserved for diplomatic ventures.

"If you would please care to show me what you've shown Dr. Ruik and his assistants, ma'am?" the Chief of State asked politely.

"Of course, Chief Daala," the subject replied with an obedient nod.

She then lifted a hand up over to the workbench and, within seconds, raised it several feet into the air using the Force. The bench held steady for a quarter of a minute before it was gently lowered to the ground.

"Would you like to see more, Chief Daala?" Ruik asked.

"No, I've seen enough," she replied. She then shifted her focus back to the subject. "You should feel honored. What you have undergone will help the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances greatly."

"I hope it does, ma'am," the subject replied meekly. "Especially for my family."

"Oh, it will," Daala said as she placed a reassuring hand on the subject's shoulder. "It will."

The Chief of State then took a step to the left.

Less than a second later, a red laser bolt pierced through the subject's forehead, leaving a deep furrow there as she collapsed dead to the floor.

Daala then brought up her commlink from her belt and activated it. "Good work. You can leave now."

On a rooftop several blocks away, a Mandalorian stood up with his rifle and flew away on his jetpack; Daala saw this when she looked to the window where a burned hole was made in the transparisteel.

When she could no longer see the jetpack's emissions, she turned back to Ruik.

"How soon can you prepare another batch of those modified midi-chlorians?" she asked.

"I'll need a day or so," Ruik replied evenly.

"Have it prepared by tomorrow at one p.m.," Daala demanded. "I'll wanna be ready for it after I've had my lunch."

Ruik's eyes widened. "You want to go through this experiment yourself, Chief Daala?"

Daala looked annoyed. "If you're going to say that you need to run more trials, don't. What I saw was a success, and I want no more time wasted on follow-ups. And if you're worried about my life, Dr. Ruik, don't be. It'll be my risk to take."

Ruik looked concerned. "As you wish, Chief."

Daala then turned and left the lab with a smirk on her face.

Ruik sighed in disbelief; he knew it was a bad idea to let Daala go through the experiment herself this early. But who was he to counter her demands when he knew firsthand what she was capable of to those who dared to defy her?

The Nautolan was then taken out of his ruminations by the reminder of the recent subject's corpse that was still on his lab's floor.

"Hey, Sheela!" he called to the Twi'lek who had previously taken care of the messes left by all of the past subjects' deaths. "Just because this corpse is left intact doesn't mean you don't have to clean it up! Let's get going, chop-chop!"

Except for the corpse, it was now only Ruik and Sheela who remained in the lab, and the latter asked, "But her body doesn't need a mop or a bucket, Dr. Ruik."

"I don't care, it's still your job!" the Nautolan replied impetuously. "Grab her by the ankles and drag her down to the Vongformed underworld if you have to, just get that body out of my sight!"

"As you wish, sir," Sheela said as she approached the corpse. At the same time, Ruik returned to the midi-chlorian injection device to do some fine-tuning for tomorrow's experiment.

But before either of them could commit to their duties, the window that had been shot by the Mandalorian's laser bolt was suddenly shattered into millions of pieces, as if by the wind of a tornado.

Both Ruik and Sheela stumbled from the shock of what just happened as they turned to the window.

And standing there was a tall, pale man dressed in dark robes.

"Hey!" Ruik exclaimed. "Who are you and what-"

His words were cut off when the dark-robed man made a simple gesture that corresponded to Sheela's neck suddenly breaking, prompting her to drop dead to the floor next to the human woman's corpse.

Ruik looked from Sheela to the intruder.

"Don't worry, Dr. Ruik," the man said. "I'm not here to kill you; I just want to make sure that your little experiment with Chief of State Natasi Daala goes off without a hitch."

"What are you talking about, what are you going to-"

Ruik was cut off from saying anymore when the man leaped across the gap between them and silenced the Nautolan by placing a hand on his forehead.

. . .

When the _Jade Shadow_ dropped out of hyperspace, Jacen looked out through the forward viewport for the sight of Kesh.

And surrounding the deceptively beautiful planet that was steeped in the dark side of the Force was a small armada of ChaseMaster frigates.

Within seconds, he was transmitted a set of coordinates upon which he could set the _Shadow_ down. No one bothered to try to confirm this with him with a transmission, but that was just fine with Jacen as he set the course. He also saw that the _Shadow_ was being scanned for lifesigns by at least one of the ChaseMasters; they would only find himself and one other human lifesign, which corresponded to that of Sith Saber Odrok Degron.

Of course, with a little technique he picked up years ago from the Baran Do Sages of Dorin, it was no surprise that the ChaseMaster's sensors might not have received accurate information.

As he piloted the _Shadow_ toward Kesh while feeling like a domesticated cat being forced to walk down a path that had vicious, unleashed dogs at either side, Jacen felt confident that none of these ships would try to destroy him. After all, he had a feeling that the Sith wouldn't want to kill him that easily; when Grand Lord Vol and High Lord Workan agreed to allow him to come to Kesh to collect Ben, they would no doubt try to use Jacen's cousin against him.

He was willing to let them try.

Within minutes, he landed within a massive courtyard, around which there were several dozen waiting Sith... and one very angry Jedi Knight.

After he cycled the _Shadow_ down, Jacen sighed before he unstrapped himself from the pilot's chair and got up to leave.

Once he stepped off the boarding ramp and had the ground of Kesh beneath his feet, he was met by Grand Lord Vol, Vestara Khai, and a scowling Ben several meters away from the _Shadow_.

Jacen raised an eyebrow toward Vol. "I'm genuinely surprised you allowed me to get this far."

"Well, we wanted to make sure you brought Saber Degron back to us safely," Vol replied.

"And then I can have Ben back?" Jacen asked.

"Don't talk about me like I'm some-"

It was Vestara who silenced Ben with a firm but gentle placement of one of her hands on his shoulder.

Jacen turned at the sound of two pairs of footsteps marching up the _Shadow_'s boarding ramp.

Moments later, however, the sounds of lightsabers igniting from within were perceptible throughout the courtyard.

Vol looked angrily at Jacen. "What's going on here, Solo?"

"It appears your Sabers are having quite a problem trying to take back one of their own," Jacen remarked with a smirk.

Two seconds later, a dozen Jedi spilled out from the boarding ramp with their lightsabers ignited. One by one, but in quick succession, came Octa Ramis, Lowbacca, Tesar Sebatyne, Corran Horn and his children Valin and Jysella, Seff Hellin, Raynar Thul, Zekk, and a few relative newcomers in Natua Wan, Radd Minker, and Bazel "Barv" Warv.

Without hesitation, after they immediately leaped to the attack upon all of the Sith in their general vicinity, almost all of them unleashed some Force-waves that sent several Sabers and High Lords sprawling to the ground; only Corran and Valin were unable to do so, but still, the former was able to make up for it by quickly projecting distracting thoughts into his closest opponents while the latter stayed within his father's reach to strike down those Sith whom Corran confused.

And within the initial surprise attack, close to three dozen Sith were taken out as the attacking Jedi used their respective advantages to slash at the dark siders before them.

Recovering from the suddenness of what just happened, Vol turned back to Jacen and activated his lightsaber just as Vestara and Ben did.

But Jacen wasted no time in doing battle with them; instead, even as he activated his own lightsaber to block Ben's incoming attack, he tackled his cousin to the ground and teleported them into the _Jade Shadow_'s cockpit.

Jacen then used his free hand to punch Ben into unconsciousness before he stood up and began bringing the _Shadow_ back online. And even as he did so, he had the ship's laser turrets begin laying cover fire against Vol, Vestara, and all of the other Sith in the courtyard, which allowed the dozen Jedi out there to press on their advantage against their foes. Naturally, the Sith who weren't vaporized—unfortunately, Vol and Vestara were still among the living—scurried for cover.

Once the _Shadow_ was back to full flight capacity, Jacen brought it up into the air and circled around, allowing each of the Jedi to leap onto the boarding ramp. Within a minute, they were all back aboard, with Lowie being the last one, before the ramp was brought back into place, which allowed Jacen to soar for the sky.

And with four Hapan Battle Dragons now exchanging fire with the ChaseMaster armada, Jacen had virtually no problem launching the _Shadow_ into hyperspace on a course for Shedu Maad.


	30. Chapter 29

On their way to their next destination, the Mandalorian who asked to be called Partner told Jaina everything that he and Tahiri discovered during their brief investigation, as promised, before letting her know where they were heading now.

"It's a space station a few parsecs from Mandalore," Partner explained. As he did so, he showed Jaina a holographic starchart above his ship's controls. "This is where my friends and I tend to hang out in between bounties."

"And considering the fact that your friends were the ones who took the Hagamoor 3 _beskar_ from Velias," Jaina said, "you intend on questioning them?"

"Not all of 'em," Partner replied. "Only one of 'em; and I know which one. He's the leader of the pack; Get him all rowdy and drunk and he'll be easy pickings from his boys. From there, we'll make him talk aboard this ship."

"But you don't know if they'll be there at this time," Jaina pointed out. "For all you know, they could be out there in anti-Imperial raids. They could even have died from one of them. How can you be so sure without contacting them? And why not contact 'em if you're so chummy with 'em?"

"If I contact them to see if they'll be on the station," Partner began, "they could get suspicious. By showing up casually, I could just be there having come back to celebrate for a successful bounty."

"All right, fair enough, you don't wanna have anything seem outta the ordinary. But we could be waiting a long time, if they show up again at all."

"Oh, I'm quite certain they'll be there by the time we arrive."

"How so?"

"It's the leader of the pack's birthday."

Jaina raised an eyebrow. "What a coincidence."

"I thought you Jedi don't believe in coincidences," Partner remarked. "I thought everything went according to the will of the Force."

"Oh, we believe that, all right," Jaina said. "I just didn't think it can be so convenient."

"You make it sound like a problem."

"When things become too easy, problems usually tend to arise," Jaina said with a foreboding tone.

. . .

When Daala walked into the lab, she said, "I hope everything is ready, Dr. Ruik."

The Nautolan nodded obediently. "As per the specifications from yesterday's experiment, Chief Daala."

She looked out to the gathered crowd in the room; nearly everyone who had ever been involved with the midi-chlorian project was gathered and regarded their Chief of State with expressions of hopefulness, pride, and anticipation.

Nearly everyone, Daala couldn't help but note.

"Where's your Twi'lek cleaning girl, Doctor?" Daala asked.

"Oh, Sheela? I'm afraid she's sick today, Chief Daala. I hope that won't ruin the experiment in any way for you."

"Not at all," she replied evenly. "I was just thinking what a shame it'll be for her to miss such a momentous occasion."

"Yes, it is regretful," Ruik remarked.

Daala noticed something else that was odd in the lab.

"Did you get that window repaired, Dr. Ruik?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," he said. "After that last subject was killed, I had-"

"It was unnecessary," she interrupted. "I hope this won't affect the experiment."

"I assure you, Chief Daala, my attention last night was completely focused on dealing with the experiment; I left Sheela to take care of the window replacement as well as the body."

"Well, I suppose she deserves a break then," Daala said. "Her loss, though. Anyway, let's begin."

No one said anymore as Daala walked over to the chair where so many subjects had placed themselves and Ruik and Plesar wasted no time setting the Chief of State up. Once Daala was properly attached to the machine, both scientists began bringing it online, gradually readying it for the moment of truth.

When they were finally done with all the preparations, Ruik looked over to the latest subject and asked, "Ready, Chief Daala?"

"As I'll ever be."

The Nautolan nodded and pulled the lever.

At first, the modified midi-chlorians coursed through the tubes that ran into Daala's body without any problems. The Chief of State responded with deep, long breaths as the brown fluid infused itself into her vital systems, giving her the microscopic symbionts that would give her the coveted connection to the Force that, relatively speaking, very few in the galaxy received.

Then, partway into the injection process, something went wrong.

This was evidenced by the sudden, violent convulsions that Daala began to exhibit; her screams became rapid yet pained, making her sound like a wounded dog as her eyes began to roll back into her head.

Everyone in the lab, including Ruik, looked on in horror. The Nautolan then hurried back to the lever and pushed it up to shut down the procedure.

But by then, it was too late; the last of the midi-chlorians entered Daala's body, and the Chief of State went limp. In response, her vital readouts flat-lined, much to the chagrin of Ruik and everyone else present.

Immediately, everyone began screaming, yelling, and panicking incessantly at each another, with no one, not even Ruik himself, being able to make themselves heard as they cried to cope with the fact that they had just killed their Chief of State.

Or so they thought.

Soon, the vital readouts ceased their flat-line monotone and began to beep again; this was what cut through the din of all the scientists' panic as they turned back to Daala.

Her eyes opened wide before them.

And before any of the scientists knew it, they were all blown off their feet by a sudden wave of Daala's hand to the point that nearly all of them crashed through the window behind them and fell to their deaths in the Vongformed underworld below.

Only Ruik was spared long enough as he was lifted bodily into the air and pulled toward a sneering Daala; she then held the Nautolan's throat in her hand.

"That hurt," she growled.

She then yelled as she tossed him back so far that he ended up falling to his death in the underworld, as well.

Daala ignored the falling scientist's screams, however, as she looked ahead with her new Force-senses.

And immediately, she felt the presence of a startled Force-sensitive in a building a block away. At the same time, she also felt that he had something to do with the agony that she just endured; this person, whoever he was, had intended to use Dr. Ruik to kill her with this experiment.

Without hesitation, Daala used the same power she just gained to grab at the Force-sensitive's neck and snap it like a twig; she sensed his life-essence dissipate instantly.

She then unstrapped herself from the machine that gave her this power, stood up without minding the minor bleeding that she had from ripping the tubules out of her body, and turned to walk out of the lab feeling more alive and powerful than ever.

As she walked down the halls leading out of the LiMerge building, Daala sneered at the thought of Grand Lord Vol believing that this experiment was a waste of time that was doomed to failure.

She couldn't wait to prove just how wrong he was.


	31. Chapter 30

"What do you mean you can't spare Shedu Maad anymore Battle Dragons, Allana?" Jacen asked the holographic representation of the Hapan Queen Mother; whatever fatherly relationship he had with her was, for the moment, suspended given the severity of the threat that they were facing. "There's a Sith ChaseMaster fleet that's on our tail! In fact, I'll have to jump out of here at any moment just to stay ahead of them!" He had stopped in the middle of an empty system for a course correction and to call ahead to Allana to warn her about the imminent danger posed to Shedu Maad by the Lost Tribe of the Sith.

"I'm sorry, Jacen," Allana said, "but with the Galactic Alliance fleet making some suspicious movements as of late, I've had to delegate certain resources to protecting key Hapan systems and sectors. And I'm afraid that Shedu Maad is one of the more unlikely systems that the GA might invade, based on their fleet movements. Again, I'm sorry, but you're on your own."

Jacen sighed. "All right; thanks for letting me know at least, Your Majesty. And I hope you won't have to go up against a GA invasion of the Consortium; even I can't imagine Daala being crazy enough to do this just to eliminate the Jedi."

"I hope you're right, Jacen." Allana then signed off, leaving Jacen to try to call ahead to Shedu Maad; even as he waited for someone to respond, he was wary of that ChaseMaster fleet that he was a few hours ahead suddenly dropping out from behind the _Jade Shadow_'s current position.

In the copilot seat, Corran Horn asked in a light tone, "You sure you don't want me to take the helm?"

Jacen shook his head without looking at the Jedi Master; he was too on edge to exchange banter with Corran.

The latter saw that and said seriously, "I'll make sure the ship's weapons are ready."

Finally, a response came through, and a holographic representation of his mother, Leia, showed up above the _Shadow_'s control console.

"Yes, Jacen, what is it?" Leia asked.

"Mom, you and Dad gotta get Uncle Luke off Shedu Maad as soon as possible," Jacen urged. "Warn everyone else at the Temple to leave, too; Allana can't spare us any help right now."

"Where should we rendezvous, Jacen?"

Jacen stopped himself; there weren't too many good alternatives that he could think of. Obviously, with the Hapes Consortium preparing for a potential invasion from a Galactic Alliance run by a power-hungry dictator, and the Imperial Remnant embroiled in a war against guerrilla-fighting Mandalorians, that left few options.

But before he could speak, three ChaseMaster frigates dropped out from behind the _Shadow_ and immediately opened fire on her stern. Jacen quickly took control of the helm and began performing evasive maneuvers even as he scrambled to set some lightspeed coordinates for anywhere but here; Corran, for his part, handled the _Shadow_'s weapons to pepper the ChaseMasters with laserfire.

"I'll have to talk to you later, Mom!" he called out.

Leia signed off for him without another word, leaving him to concentrate on getting out of there.

"Any ideas on where we're going, Jacen?" Corran asked.

"Unknown Regions!" Jacen practically shouted. "We can contact Mom and the others from there if we don't make it too far!"

With that, he had coordinates set for the nearest system to the Unknown Regions and launched ahead of the assaulting ChaseMasters.

. . .

To make sure she wasn't recognized as the daughter of Han and Leia Solo, even if she wasn't known for her own deeds during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion and Second Galactic Civil War, Jaina was given a set of facial prostheses and a significant amount of makeup to disguise her well-known features. Once she was satisfied that she couldn't recognize herself in the mirror that Partner provided for her, she nodded at him and said, "Let's go."

They then disembarked from the Firespray and set foot on the deck of the anonymous space station where Partner tended to hang out with his friends. Jaina followed the Mandalorian to the cantina, which wasn't too far from the port where the Firespray was parked; during the brief walk, she was the object of several stares from both helmeted and unhelmeted Mandos alike, but they regarded her with nothing more than casual curiosity, so Jaina knew she was safe... for now.

Soon, Jaina and Partner entered the cantina and found the group of Mandos they were looking for already at the bar counter drinking and cavorting with each other. Among them, however, was a new member—a pale male with dark hair and raised cheekbones—who seemed to be far more handsome than his buddies.

"That guy new?" Jaina asked.

"Yeah," Partner replied. "Let's see if they'll introduce us to him."

Once Jaina and Partner were a few meters away from their targets, the latter all looked to the arriving pair and they all cheered, "Partner!"

"Even your pals call you that?" Jaina asked with a whisper. "If that's the level of trust you have in your friends, I wonder how mean you'd be to your enemies."

Partner ignored her as he addressed the group. "Hey, guys. Who's the new recruit?"

"Oh, yeah!" the guy whom Jaina recognized as the leader of the pack said, "Partner, meet Kendros! Kendros, meet Partner!"

Partner and Kendros shook hands. "Pleasure to meet the legendary and mysterious Partner," the latter said. "Is it true you don't even take off your helmet even when you're drinking?"

"It is," Partner replied curtly. He then opened a little port in his helmet near his mouth, which didn't show anything of his features, before he just as promptly closed it up.

"Ha! You were right, Sakla!" Kendros called to the leader. "He does act like a badass holovid character! But you know, man, you make that _osik_ work; normally, that'd come off as douchey, but it works for ya!"

"Hmm," was all Partner said in response.

Kendros and his pals all drunkenly laughed at that.

"So, Sakla, when did Kendros here join?" Partner asked.

"Well, it happened about a couple months back when we-"

"Hey, wait a minute," Kendros said, cutting off Sakla. "Don't I know you?" He addressed this question to Jaina.

"I don't think we've met," she replied.

"Yeah, me neither, but..." Kendros tilted his head one way as he studied Jaina. "You still look familiar."

"Oh, you know," she said with a dismissive shrug, "I just have one of those... faces... that..."

Jaina trailed off as she started to sense something from Kendros.

Something... through the Force.

Kendros was a dark sider, Jaina quickly realized as she easily pierced through whatever he had to disguise his essence because of his inebriation.

As if in realization of that thought, Kendros pointed right at Jaina and screamed, "Jedi!"

Everyone in the bar looked confusedly at Kendros even as he brought up a lightsaber—not a blaster, but a lightsaber—from within his chestplate and ignited its red Sith blade.

But before Jaina could even activate her own weapon, not caring that that would make her a target for everyone in this room except for Partner, another lightsaber ignited elsewhere in the cantina.

All eyes then turned to a nearby booth where a brunette with tanned skin was wielding a blue-bladed lightsaber. This individual then leaped from her booth and soared in a Force-assisted jump toward Kendros, where they proceeded to briefly clash blades with one another.

But because of Kendros's intoxication, whatever Force technique he could have used to purge the inebriating effects from his system didn't help him as he was quickly disarmed and knocked out with a single punch by the blue-bladed woman.

It was then that every Mando who wasn't Partner finally caught up mentally with the situation and raised their blasters at the brunette to open fire. However, the woman ducked beneath a nearby vacant table, and Jaina and Partner followed suit.

"Partner, get Kendros and let's get outta here!" the brunette said.

Both Jaina and Partner looked at the woman in askance as they recognized her voice and got a good look at her face.

"Tahiri?" Jaina asked.

"Veila?" Partner asked.

"I'll explain later! Right now, we gotta leave with Kendros!" the disguised Tahiri said as blaster bolts continued to soar above the surface of the table that the three of them hid under; apparently, all the drunken mercs still didn't realize that they had to shoot under the table if they wanted to hit their targets.

After only a couple of seconds of confusion, Partner nodded and turned to leap toward Kendros's unconscious body, which he grabbed by the ankles and stayed low as he began dragging him to the cantina's exit. By then, Jaina, whose lightsaber was up and active, and Tahiri already emerged from beneath the table to redirect all of the Mandalorians' blasterfire back toward them or elsewhere.

Naturally, several shots hit the racks of alcohol behind the bar, which immediately started a fire that would soon consume the bar if it wasn't doused in time. Still, that didn't distract the drunken Mandos from firing at the two lightsaber-wielders as they gradually backed out of the cantina.

Once Jaina and Tahiri were out of the bar, they turned away and began to redirect blasterfire from the other Mandos in this corridor of the space station. Yet still they kept up with their defenses as they continued to cover for Partner, who was still dragging Kendros along the grimy deck.

Halfway back to Partner's Firespray, Jaina and Tahiri took cover behind a thick durasteel column just as Partner also took cover behind one that was slightly closer to the docking port. Jaina then used that opportunity to use the Force to rip some girders that lined the roof of the corridor and sent them soaring down for the Mandos that were now closing in on their location. In response, the mercs scattered to avoid getting crushed, though a few of them did end up collapsing dead from the weight that dropped upon them.

Jaina, Tahiri, and Partner then emerged from their cover and continued on their way back to the Firespray. This time, though, Jaina was able to swing the fallen girders around, bashing more Mandos around as Tahiri continued to deflect shots fired by mercs that didn't have to contend with the flying objects.

Eventually, the three of them finally made it to the Firespray and boarded it. Once the landing ramp was back up, Partner had his ship up, running, and soaring out of the docking bay for space, where he then had them all plunging into hyperspace within moments.

Now that they were safe, both Jaina and Partner turned to Tahiri, who was minding Kendros's unconscious form.

"How'd you escape?" Partner asked.

"I didn't escape," Tahiri said. "Jag let me out."

"Jag let you out?!" Jaina asked in disbelief. "Wow; I don't know whether or not I should be angry he didn't tell me or kiss him for finally regrowing his spine and standing up against the Moff Council!"

"Officially, I'm still a prisoner," Tahiri explained. "Jag managed to get a pretty convincing lookalike to fill in for me in my cell."

"How the hell did you convince him to let you out?" Partner asked. "And how'd you get here ahead of us?"

"I told him that I remembered the coordinates that we were heading to before you knocked me out," Tahiri said with some contempt in her voice for the Mando. "You see, before I began the conversation that ultimately led you to bringing me back to Bastion, I had a gut feeling that it wouldn't end well. So I took a little bit of time to remember from your sensors where our final destination's coordinates would be, and I took a faster route ahead of you two to surprise you; Jag also gave me a pretty fast ship and I'm sure he's not gonna be happy when I tell him I left behind back at that station."

"That doesn't explain how you convinced him to let you out," Partner pointed out. "You're unstable, Veila; we can't trust you, not after your little outburst over Velias."

Tahiri smirked. "Oh, please; you're not even mad about that. You're just mad that I tried to kill you. Then again, I guess I can understand why you wouldn't be too happy about that."

"Tahiri, answer the question," Jaina urged. "How'd you convince Jag to let you out? And why didn't he tell me about this?"

"Fine," Tahiri said as she rolled her eyes in annoyance. "I convinced him by reminding him that he needed every resource he had at his disposal, and that included me. Because, let's face it, Jaina, I may have overreacted with Partner here, and Velias was a bit messy, I'll admit, but so far, what have I done that's really that bad? It's not like I massacred a buncha innocent children for giggles."

"So Jag thought it'd be a good idea to let you out so that you can get an opportunity to actually do something like that?" Jaina asked in disbelief.

"He figured you could keep me in check, Jaina," Tahiri said. "He said it was a mistake leaving me alone with someone as apathetic to my needs as Partner over here. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, the reason Jag didn't tell you about it over a holocomm discussion; he's too busy with the war right now to spare any time."

Jaina raised an eyebrow at that. "Is that so?"

Tahiri nodded. "Yeah, it is."

Jaina regarded Tahiri for a long moment before looking down at the moaning form of a recovering Kendros.

"Now shall we get to work on interrogating this bastard or do you wanna ask me anymore questions?" Tahiri asked.

Jaina sighed. She'll question Tahiri more later; because while she had her doubts about her story, she was right about focusing on the present with this Sith disguised as a Mandalorian.

"Let's get to business," Jaina said.


	32. Chapter 31

"Now I'm going to ask you nicely this one time," Jaina said as she regarded Kendros with a friendly-enough smile. "What did you do with the _beskar_ from Hagamoor 3?"

Kendros was tied to the copilot seat of Partner's Firespray by some metallic cable and was absent his armor and physical weapons. However, even when he was reduced to his underwear, that didn't stop Kendros from spitting at Jaina in response.

But Jaina's Jedi reflexes allowed her to dodge the saliva and let it hit the bulkhead behind her.

"Go to hell, Jedi," the Sith sneered.

"Great, now I have to clean that up," Partner said as he looked at the spit on the bulkhead. He then turned back to Kendros. "You have any idea how much I hate to maintain this ship, necessary though it might be?"

He then punched Kendros across the jaw, prompting him to spit some blood out on the deck. The Sith looked back up at the Mando and laughed. "Well, now you just made me mess up your precious ship even more, Mando. Want me to do it again?" Kendros then started to deliberately spit more blood and saliva at the deck beneath his feet.

Partner soon stopped him from doing that anymore by placing his vibroblade near his throat.

Kendros raised his brows. "That would really make a mess, I think."

"Partner, if you'd let me?" Tahiri asked as she leaned on the bulkhead next to Kendros.

Partner waved at Kendros. "Be my guest; just don't complain about it to me later."

"No, no, no, you don't let her do that, especially not after Velias" Jaina insisted. She then looked at the other woman. "You've touched the dark side more than enough, Tahiri. I'm not letting you do anything to this man."

"If you know what you're doing, Jaina, I won't get in your way," Tahiri replied evenly.

Jaina didn't say anymore to Tahiri before she looked back at Kendros. With a more strict tone, she asked, "Where'd you take the _beskar_?"

"Up your ass," Kendros sneered.

"My ass has no _beskar_," Jaina replied glibly. "Now if you don't tell us where it is, I'm gonna have Partner here take you to Dathomir where they'll rob you of your underwear and make you a sex slave; it's a matriarchal society, men have virtually no rights there. And trust me, not all the woman there are attractive like in the Hapes Consortium; you'd be shocked at how many of them are hideously ugly. They live in a jungle, many of them have scars that you wouldn't find all that pleasing."

"I'd kill them if they ever tried that on me," Kendros replied contemptuously.

"Did I mention they were witches who were deeply sensitive, and highly trained, with the Force?" Jaina retorted. "They don't have any compunction toward compassion or empathy the same way we Jedi do; and you don't even wanna know what the Nightsisters would do to you if they got their hands on you."

"I'm not scared by any of this, Jedi."

"Oh? But you will be. You will be."

. . .

Aboard the ChaseMaster _Uvak's Prey_, of which Grand Lord Vol took command, Vestara had finished throwing up in the refresher of her quarters. When that was done, she checked into the ship's medbay to find out what kind of sickness she had fallen prey to.

It turned out that it wasn't exactly the kind of sickness that she expected.

"Pregnant?!" she asked in shock.

The physician to whom she exclaimed, Keshiri male Sith Saber Marklos Jegnak, nodded with an expression that didn't betray any of his personal feelings on the matter. "That's exactly what the results say, Saber Khai."

Ves sat back on the observation bed and looked away from Jegnak in disbelief.

The older Saber allowed Ves some moments of silence as she ruminated on what this meant for her before he finally asked, "If I may be so bold, who is the father?"

"Ben," she whispered; the way she said that, it was clear to Jegnak she wasn't even talking to him.

Jegnak allowed for another pause before he asked, "Do you wish to keep the child?"

Then Ves looked directly at him. "Of course I wanna keep him. Or her. I don't wanna..." She trailed off, as she couldn't bring herself to even utter the word "abortion."

"I understand. Should I inform Grand Lord Vol or do you want to do it?"

"I'll do it. Thank you."

By the time Ves got to the bridge of the _Uvak's Prey_, she walked toward an angry-looking Vol and asked him, "My Lord, may I have a moment with you in private?"

Vol regarded her for a moment before he said, "Very well. Follow me to the ready room."

Minutes afterwards, after Vestara explained to the Grand Lord about her pregnancy in the privacy of the ready room, he asked, "So you wish to be relieved of this assignment to carry out your term in safety, Saber Khai?"

"Not at all, My Lord. In fact, I now have more of a reason to bring Ben back to Kesh."

"So your child may have a father."

"Yes, My Lord."

Vol regarded Ves evenly before he spoke again. "You must understand, Saber Khai, that that might not be possible now."

"My Lord, I know that after what Jacen Solo did to us on Kesh, you want to see him dead-"

"And I will," Vol interrupted firmly.

"But if there's any chance that Ben can be saved, we should-"

"Saber Khai, I understand your concerns. But if we are to kill Solo and all the other Jedi as it is our sacred duty as Sith, I cannot allow your child not having a father to be an impediment to our goals. Is that clear?"

Ves looked dumbfounded; she didn't say anything in response.

Vol sighed. "If there is a chance that Ben can be saved, Saber Khai, then I will do everything in my power to save him. But know this: if there is no alternative, if it is imperative to our survival and the destruction of the Jedi... well, I'm sure you can find another suitor within the ranks of the Lost Tribe who can fulfill the role of your child's father. Now, will that be all?"

Ves pursed her lips, as if she were about to say something that would defy her Grand Lord. But then she just as promptly closed her mouth to take a deep breath through her nose before finally saying, "That will be all, My Lord."

"You're dismissed then."


	33. Chapter 32

"My Lord," the Sith Saber operating the communications of the _Uvak's Prey_ said, "there is a transmission coming from Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala. Would you like to take it here or in the ready room?"

Vol was about to answer with, "Ready room," only to mentally back up; if Daala was going to try to flex what little muscle that she had in her "partnership" with the Lost Tribe, he would remind her of her place by applying pressure to her neck with the Force, thereby demonstrating the true power that he himself wielded.

No doubt, he thought, that it would also serve as a reminder of the power that she could potentially receive from him (but never actually get) if she continued to cooperate. As well, it could possibly boost morale among everyone on the bridge who were aching to seek vengeance on the Jedi who humiliated them back on Kesh.

"My Lord?" the communications officer asked.

"No," Vol finally answered. "I will take it here."

"As you wish, My Lord."

The viewport that offered a sight of the stars outside was replaced by that of Daala in her office on Coruscant.

"Chief Daala, what is it that you-"

Vol was cut off from saying anymore as he felt his throat close shut. Immediately, he began to choke much to the chagrin of everyone on the bridge who were too dumbstruck to help.

Thankfully, this only lasted for less than fifteen seconds before Vol could breathe clearly again, and he looked at Daala's image in confusion.

The Chief of State returned that stare with one that demonstrated her characteristic pride and arrogance.

"I did it, Vol," she said. "I got the Force; and I got it without you."

"That's impossible!" Vol exclaimed in disbelief. "You seriously aren't suggesting that those experiments that you ran had-"

"I'm not just suggesting it, Grand Lord Vol. I'm outright telling you that those experiments were successful. Now I have the ability to reach out across the galaxy to strangle you to death the same way you could to me."

The ensuing silence was one that permeated the bridge with terror as everyone present absorbed the information that Daala relayed to them.

"I-it's a trick!" Vol countered vainly. "You have a Force-sensitive working directly for you, don't you? Is this some attempt to mislead me so that you can take direct control of the Lost Tribe of the-"

"Grand Lord Vol, when was the last time you contacted the Sith agent you sent to spy on the progress of the experiments that I had my scientists running?"

Vol paused before he responded. As a matter of fact, in the midst of the fallout that came from Jacen Solo's stunt on Kesh, the Grand Lord had completely forgotten about receiving a progress report from the agent Daala just mentioned.

But instead of answering her question, Vol asked Daala, "What about him?"

"I used the Force to kill him; I find that using this power that you can tap into is quite exquisite at ending lives, especially those that attempt to sabotage my plans. But if you still don't believe me, let me prove it to you in a way that's much more... definitive."

Daala closed her eyes. And then, before Vol had a chance to ask her what she was trying to do, he seized up as he felt her essence, significantly magnified with the Force since he last spoke to her, inside his mind.

_I'm in your mind now, Vol. You can feel me, can't you? Go on ahead; you can say it out loud. Let everyone on the bridge know that I share this power with you and the rest of them._

_No_, Vol replied defiantly.

_Do it!_

_No._

_Do it!_

_No!_

_DO IT!_

A sharp pain pierced through Vol's mind, and he fell to both knees as he futilely grappled at his temples.

"I can feel you!" he cried out.

It was then that Daala opened her eyes and asked, "What did you say?"

Vol stood up and composed himself before he reluctantly repeated, "I can... feel you, Chief of State Daala."

She grinned. "Of course you can. Now... I am no longer your puppet. We are... partners in this venture to destroy the Jedi, as you once suggested to me."

Vol could see right through Daala's wording; she might as well have said, "You are now my puppet." The Grand Lord, who now secretly thought himself less than that, thought that Daala was only being nice to him so that he would have less of a reason to turn on her now that she could wield the Force; and if he was to be her puppet, then she couldn't blatantly subsume his authority anymore than she already had in front of the bridge crew of the _Uvak's Prey_.

Thus, considering the circumstances, Vol saw only one option: to play along... for now.

"Very well, Chief Daala. Now our partnership... is true." He felt like he had swallowed poison in saying those words.

"Excellent. Now we have some business to discuss. Shall we speak more privately, Grand Lord Vol?"

"Yes, we may." A little part of Vol felt glad that if he was going to be humiliated any further, it might as well be in the privacy of this ship's ready room.

Once he was situated in that room, he asked Daala's holographic representation, "What do you want?"

"As I understand it," Daala began, "the Jedi have fled from their capital of Shedu Maad and other territories of the Hapes Consortium. They've taken to the Unknown Regions, have they not?"

"We're attempting to find them," Vol confirmed reluctantly. "But once it became clear that they were heading into the Unknown Regions, we lost track of them. We're doing everything we can to-"

"I've heard enough. Report back to me as soon as you've made any progress. I'll make sure the Hapes Consortium is too busy to help the Jedi Order."

"Keeping them busy?" Vol asked. "As in a war?"

"Indeed. And if I have to embroil the Galactic Alliance in a years-long war to destroy the Consortium so that the Jedi will be wiped out once and for all, then so be it."

"Wait," Vol said when he saw that Daala was going to sign off.

"What?"

"How?"

"How what?"

"How were you able to master the Force so well? Even with raw potential, it takes years to master what you have done."

"Perhaps it would. But then again, if your agent didn't sabotage the midi-chlorian machine in an attempt to kill me, maybe I would be at a much more... trainee level.

"It feels wonderful, you know," Daala went on. "To have all of this power in an instant and to know how to use it. With what I have, I wouldn't be surprised if I could master lightsaber combat so well, I could defeat you and Luke Skywalker combined."

"If I didn't experience what I experienced on the bridge," Vol said, "I would have dismissed that as nothing more than a power fantasy conjured up by a deluded madwoman."

"Yet here I am." It was then that Daala signed off.


	34. Chapter 33

Upon setting down in one of Dathomir's few spaceports, Jaina, Tahiri, and Partner disembarked from the latter's Firespray with Kendros, who was held by his elbows by Tahiri and Partner. The Sith was walking with some slight grogginess, as if he were still drunk from his time at the Mandalorian space station, while wearing some clothes (which Partner kept in a storage compartment aboard his ship for a "rainy day," as he said). Of course, by now, the inebriation from the alcohol had long worn off, and Kendros was now constantly on the verge of falling asleep because of a dose of the very same drug that Partner had given to Tahiri when he brought her back to Bastion.

"He's an escaped manservant for one of the tribes," Jaina had explained to the portmaster when the latter met them to inquire about their business. "We were hired to bring him back home. He's been drinking, in case you're wondering."

"Don't let 'em take me!" Kendros said with a slur in his speech. "I'm not a manservant, I'm-"

He was cut off from saying anymore when Tahiri swatted him across the head.

"Quiet, imbecile!" she yelled. "Or I'll inform your mistresses of the full extent of your indiscretions!"

That swat to his head made Kendros way too dazed to respond properly.

The portmaster, an aged woman who looked like she couldn't care less about what they were doing here, said with a shrug, "Okay. Go on ahead."

As they walked away, Jaina wondered if that woman would have cared if they had dragged Kendros out while he was still in his underwear.

It wasn't long afterwards before the four of them were deep within the forests of Dathomir, by which point Jaina selected a tree and used the Force to pin Kendros up against it.

"This won't intimidate me, Jedi!" the Sith slurred. As he shouted this, Partner brought out, from his belt, the metallic cable that had trapped the Sith to the Firespray's copilot's chair previously. The Mandalorian then began to wrap the cable around Kendros as the latter continued with, "If you think that luring some ugly witches to me so that I can be used as their sex slave is going to force me to tell you anything, think again!"

"You know, honestly," Jaina said, "it's probably not the witches you should be worried about; it's the rancors."

"Rancors?" Kendros asked. "What are those?"

"Oh, you don't know? Why, rancors are some of the most fearsome beasts in the galaxy! Not only do the witches on this planet ride them, but when they eat any living being, their digestive tracts keep those beings alive long after they've been ingested. In fact, their prey is still alive... even after they've been defecated out.

"How is that possible? Through an enzyme called... hedrocosin, I believe it is, so when you finally emerge from a rancor's ass, there will still be enough left of you to be alive even after most of your body has literally been turned to poodoo. Thus, not only will you be writhing in pain when you finally exit its body, but you will smell like poo. And guess what? You don't actually die until another rancor comes along and eats the rest of you, and only then will you be a hundred percent poodoo instead of fifty percent. Or was it sixty percent? I can't remember the exact figure."

As Jaina told these "facts," ridiculous though they may have been, she could barely hide her amusement as she saw the look of horror that dawned on Kendros's face. She could only guess that the drug that kept him too groggy from using the Force was also influencing his mind into believing such a tall tale.

"Now," Jaina continued, "if you wish to avoid being part-man, part-poodoo, or all sex slave to some hideous witches, just ring me up on this." She then handed him a commlink. "Activate it when you're ready to tell us where the Hagamoor 3 _beskar_ is and maybe we'll save you."

"Maybe?" Kendros asked.

"Well, if you don't respond quickly enough," Jaina said, "we might not get to you in time." She gave him a smile.

"Oh, and before we leave," Tahiri said.

She then ripped open the front of Kendros's tunic, revealing his muscle-bound torso.

"That should be attractive to those hideous witches," Tahiri teased.

With that, Jaina, Tahiri, and Partner began walking back to the spaceport where the Firespray was parked, all the while ignoring Kendros's protestations that he wasn't scared and that he'll never give them what they want and whatnot.

By the time they were far enough out of earshot from Kendros, Tahiri asked Jaina, "You know, if he's actually discovered by some witches and finds that they're not as unattractive as we led him to believe, he'll start to doubt everything else about the threat."

"Maybe at the start," Jaina conceded. "But I have a feeling that once they start treating him like a second-class citizen, if not outright human garbage, maybe he'll start to look at ugliness from a different angle."

"That could take some time," Tahiri pointed out evenly. "Maybe not as much as we should be wasting with this subterfuge."

Jaina stopped the trio in their tracks right there as she said, "Jag can take care of the Imperial Remnant against the Mandos, Tahiri, if that's what you're wondering."

"I wasn't questioning that," Tahiri countered. "It's that every second we waste here instead of getting right to the point with Kendros means that more Imperial lives are lost in that pointless war with the Mandos."

"We're not wasting time here," Jaina insisted firmly.

"Aren't we?"

Jaina looked curiously at Tahiri. "Why are you interested in getting to the truth so quickly, Tahiri? Even if it means having to resort to the dark side?"

"Sometimes, Jaina, the dark side is what's needed to get the job done."

Jaina looked gobsmacked. "That's never the way and you know that! Haven't you learned anything when you were brought back from Cae-"

"Don't you dare say his name!" Tahiri growled as she leveled an accusatory finger up at Jaina's face.

"Why not? What are you afraid of, Tahiri?"

"I'm not afraid of anything."

"Oh, no, I think you are. So why don't you spill it?"

"There's nothing to _spill_."

"There is, though; if not what you're really afraid of, then how about how you really escaped from Bastion?"

"What?"

"You heard me. Don't think that I bought your lie for a second; I know Jag didn't let you out in secret, and I didn't even have to contact him."

"You don't have any idea what you're talkin' about, Jaina."

"How'd you do it, Tahiri? Huh? Who really helped you out?"

"You're delusional, Jaina."

"I'm not the one who's delusional here. You're the one who's deluding herself into thinking that you're trying to do some good for the galaxy when you're just trying to vent your anger to the world!"

"Oh, that's rich coming from you! As if you can really judge me when you have everyone on your side!"

"What are you talking about?"

"You have an entire family to look out for you, Jaina! I have no one! Not after Anakin died!" Tears started to form in Tahiri's eyes.

Jaina was silent for a long while before she said, "But, Tahiri... we were always there for you. Especially after Anakin was gone. You were with us for so long when we continued to fight the Yuuzhan Vong. It was your decision to leave with Zonama Sekot after the war ended, and when you came back, my family and I were willing to take you in, even after the Killiks, even after... Caedus. Yes, Anakin died, but that didn't mean you still couldn't be a part of our family. You're not alone, Tahiri; just please let us help you."

Tahiri looked away from Jaina as the tears really started to well up in her eyes. She then ran away.

"Where are you going?" Jaina called out.

"Away from you!" came Tahiri's response.

Jaina was about to go after Tahiri when Partner's hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"Leave her be," the Mando said. "Honestly, she's more useful to us gone than taggin' along."

"She has no idea what she's doing!" Jaina countered. "She could be hurt out there! She doesn't know this forest!"

"You can sense her Force-presence, yes?"

"If she's hiding from me, I might need to try a little harder to look for her, but yes."

"Then we can come back for her later _after_ Kendros has his little change of heart. If you go after her now, you could compromise this mission. After all, Kendros can only be groggy for so long on that last dose I gave him, and if he gets his powers back, I'm gonna need you with me to subdue him."

Jaina sighed after a while. "All right, we'll do it your way. But if anything happens to Tahiri, I'm holding you responsible. Is that clear?"

"Hmm. Starting to sound like her now."

"What?" Jaina asked in disbelief.

"Blaming me for her actions; just because I convinced you not to go after her doesn't mean I'm personally responsible for whatever fate befalls her in this forest. It'll either be her fault, nature's fault, or the fault of one of those witches if they don't like her."

"Wow. That rationale must do wonders for your conscience."

"A conscience can only be so useful until it becomes a hindrance to what needs to get done."

"You mean an inconvenience."

"Same difference."

"Now who's starting to sound more like Tahiri?" Jaina retorted.

Before Partner could come up with a comeback, they heard a masculine scream out in the forest; Jaina and Partner turned in the general direction of that scream.

"It's Kendros, c'mon!" Jaina said as she ran to where they left the Sith tied up.

"I thought you left him that commlink to call you!" Partner called as he followed Jaina.

"I did! Maybe he just couldn't use it for some reason! We'll find out soon enough!"

Once Jaina and Partner arrived, they both skidded to a stop at what they saw.

Kendros sat slumped up, still tied to the tree, but his eyes looked glazed over, he was drooling, and his Force-presence was barely discernible.

And Tahiri stood over him, looking pitiably upon the catatonic Sith, before she looked over to Jaina and Partner.

"Little something I picked up from Caedus," she said. "Told me he did something similar to Ta'a Chume during the Dark Nest Crisis; would have done it to Velias if he hadn't been so cooperative."

"Tahiri, what have you done?" Jaina asked in shock.

"Got you the information you needed about where the Hagamoor 3 _beskar_ went," Tahiri said. "And trust me, it'll be some very interesting proof to show to Mirta Gev. It's on Mandalore itself, in a private storage facility labelled Warehouse 66. You're welcome. And don't worry about me; I'll find transport off this rock later."

Tahiri turned and disappeared off into the forest.

"Mandalore, Warehouse 66," Partner said aloud even as Jaina was still reeling from what just happened. "Pretty easy to remember. She may be a bitch, but she pulled through for us in the end."

Jaina swiftly turned around and Force-shoved Partner to a nearby tree. She then turned back and headed after Tahiri, honing in on her Force-presence as she did so.

After a while, however, Tahiri's Force-presence simply disappeared from Jaina's senses. Still, she hurried on in the general direction in which she had been running anyway as she once again tried to lock in on Tahiri's presence.

But right before she did so, Jaina was promptly knocked out when Tahiri dropped on top of her from a tree branch above. The former Jedi then continued on her way toward the spaceport that was furthest from the one in which Partner docked his Firespray.

Not much later, Jaina came to, and hovering over the tree canopy above her was Partner's ship; its landing ramp open for her to Force-jump into.

Once she was aboard and in the Firespray's cockpit, she asked Partner, "Any sign of her?"

"No luck," Partner replied. "But I'm not sticking around to find her; we're going to Mandalore and to Warehouse 66."

Jaina grabbed at the collar of his armor, but before she could say anything, "Just remember, I've rigged this ship to knock you out in case you try anything, Fel. That's how I got Veila, it's how I'll get you. Now shall we go to Mandalore?"

She looked at Partner contemptuously. "I'm not giving up on her."

"Of course not; you're just prioritizing."

Partner then lifted off into the skies above; by the time the Firespray was clear of Dathomir's gravity well, she launched into hyperspace for Mandalore.


	35. Chapter 34

Somewhere in the Unknown Regions, the _Millennium Falcon_ dropped out of hyperspace into a system with only a blue dwarf star in the distance. Alongside her, a fleet of StealthX Jedi starfighters joined and now faced the _Jade Shadow_.

In the latter ship's cockpit, Jacen answered the incoming transmission from the _Falcon_. "_Jade Shadow_ here."

"We got the entirety of the Jedi Order here, kid," the voice of Han Solo said over the frequency. "Except for Jaina; she's still investigating for Jag to bring the war with the Mandos to an end."

"She's safe, Dad. I can feel it."

"As can I," came Leia's voice from the other end.

"Of course she is," Han said with a slightly relieved tone.

"How's Uncle Luke?" Jacen asked.

There was a brief silence before Han replied soberly. "He still thinks you're Caedus and that killing you will somehow bring Mara and Ben back to him; we got him locked up in the _Falcon_'s cargo hold."

"We made sure that the ysalamir that Tekli used to nullify his Force-powers came along," Leia added. "It's been placed just outside the hold so your uncle can't get to it."

"But we have discovered a way to make sure that won't be necessary," Tekli said; apparently, she was also in the _Falcon_'s cockpit with Han and Leia. "Because of the mystical nature of Master Skywalker's affliction, I bypassed looking into any medicinal treatments and went directly into looking into the Jedi Temple's historical database for a solution.

"I found one just before we had to evacuate Shedu Maad from the Sith. It's quite simple, but it won't be easy; you have to kill every single Sith who was directly involved in the ceremony that established the Force trap that affected Master Skywalker's mind."

Jacen's eyes widened. "Do you have Sith Saber Odrok Degron?"

"We got him off Shedu Maad with the rest of us so the Sith couldn't rescue him," Han explained. "We have tied up in the _Falcon_'s dorsal turret with his own ysalamir nearby and just out of reach. And don't worry, I shut down controls to the cannon so he can't operate it from there if he broke free. Why do you wanna see him, Jacen?"

"I just wanted to give him some petty scolding for lying about there being no cure to Uncle Luke's affliction," Jacen replied. "That, and to ask him who, aside from Grand Lord Darish Vol, was responsible for what happened to Luke."

"He claimed not to have known about how to undo the effects when we confronted him about the matter," Tekli stated. "But whether he was lying or is genuinely ignorant about that, I still doubt he'd be willing to tell you who you had to kill to get Master Skywalker back to normal, Jacen."

"Oh, trust me, just get him to the Kathol Rift and he'll be singing the same tune he did when he told me about Kesh. But even if that doesn't work on him again, I'll just remind him that Grand Lord Vol and the other Lost Tribe High Lords will want him dead just for telling the Jedi Order about their homeworld. Put him through so I can-"

Before Jacen could finish that sentence, the ChaseMaster Sith fleet dropped out from behind the _Millennium Falcon_ and the StealthX configuration and immediately began opening fire on them and the _Jade Shadow_. Obviously, all of the Sith's enemy ships began evasive maneuvers and firing back at the capital ships even as the latter discharged several squadrons of mixed fighters for engagement.

"Never mind about Degron!" Jacen said as he divided his attention as best as he could between flying the _Shadow_ and talking. "Tekli, do you remember where Zonama Sekot was when you and Tahiri left it?"

"You want me to bring the Jedi fleet to Zonama, Jacen?" Tekli asked.

"I hope that's not a problem!" he exclaimed just before he veered out of the way of a proton torpedo that was fired from one of the ChaseMasters.

"If it is, I hope Sekot can forgive us for leading a Sith fleet to her!" Tekli replied. "But I don't remember the exact coordinates, it's been so-"

"Don't worry about that right now!" Jacen exclaimed as he ducked beneath laserfire from a Sith-piloted X-wing that Corran managed to blow out of the sky; the Jedi Master was the one to operate the _Shadow_'s weapons controls. "Dad, relay coordinates for the rest of the Jedi fleet that'll take 'em further into the Unknown Regions! When you're safe from the Sith fleet for a while, work with-"

Jacen was cut off from saying anymore when the _Shadow_ took a few turbolaser hits to her aft; he immediately placed the ship into an upward corkscrew before he continued with, "Work with Tekli to determine where Zonama Sekot was when she and Tahiri left it years ago! And if it's not there, we'll keep looking!"

"We'll do what we can, Jacen!" Han exclaimed. An audible grunt from him followed, and then the signal was abruptly cut off.

Thankfully, since Jacen could still feel that his parents were still alive, he knew that it was just because they either shut it off to focus on the battle or they took a hit that damaged their signal transceiver. So, as it was, it was time for him to try a plan that he knew was as stupid as it was desperate.

"Corran, take the helm!" Jacen said.

"What?" Corran replied in disbelief.

"Just do it! I have a plan! Valin, take control of the weapons!"

Corran's son, Valin, entered the cockpit just as Jacen vacated the pilot seat for Corran; right away, Valin took the copilot seat to operate the _Shadow_'s lasers.

Once Jacen saw that both Horns' were squarely focused on the battle, he closed his eyes to concentrate as he reached out through the Force to locate Grand Lord Darish Vol's presence in the ChaseMaster fleet.

Then, as soon as he did, Jacen initiated the Aing-Tii teleportation method.

When he opened his eyes, he stood right in front of a stunned Vol on the bridge of his ChaseMaster, surrounded by many loyal followers.

Before Vol could do anything to respond, Jacen flipped over him, activated his lightsaber, and leveled the blade up by the Grand Lord's throat even as he used his free arm to pull the Keshiri close to him.

"Back away!" Jacen called out to the bridge crew. "Or I decapitate your precious Grand Lord right here!"

Everyone else on the bridge, Vestara Khai included, froze in place as they looked at Jacen and Vol.

"You have my full attention, Solo," Vol said glibly. "Now why don't you simply kill me right here, right now?"

"Who were the other members in the ceremony on Kavan, Vol?" Jacen intoned. When Vol didn't immediately respond, Jacen yelled, "Answer me!"

Vol's reply was a deep, throaty laugh. "So you figured out how to undo the curse that my subordinates and I placed on your uncle, Solo?" he retorted. "Well, in that case..."

A sudden Force-wave that blew out from Vol's very being sent Jacen flying back across the bridge, where he ended up hitting the bulkhead behind him and collapsing prone to the deck just as his then-deactivated lightsaber clattered away from his grip.

"If you wanted to make an ultimatum, Solo," Vol said as he turned and approached the downed Jacen, "you should have, at the very least, provided an incentive that would have guaranteed the safety of my life."

Jacen Force-pulled his lightsaber back into his palms just as he stood up and activated it again.

Vol waved off all the other Sith on the bridge who were about to approach Jacen. "He's mine," the Grand Lord declared before he activated his own lightsaber.

Vol then leaped across the bridge toward Jacen, but when he slashed down at the Jedi, the latter had already rolled out of the way and to the bridge's exit. Vol then Force-sprinted toward Jacen, where he, with his vicious strikes, quickly drove the Knight off the bridge and into the corridor outside.

However, instead of blocking each of Vol's attacks, Jacen resorted more to dodging and leaping out of the way, allowing his momentum to carry him off the bulkheads around him and letting Vol slash violently away at the walls and deck.

"You can't evade me forever, Solo!" Vol declared in between strikes.

"Oh, yeah? Watch me!" Jacen taunted.

That prompted an angry howl from Vol, which increased the ferocity of his attacks as he continued to drive Jacen down the corridor.

Eventually, Jacen and Vol had reached an intersection in the hallway, and the Jedi quickly disengaged and ran down the branch to his left. As he did so, he deactivated his lightsaber and replaced it to his belt so that he could focus both on running and on using the Force to blow out all the lights along the way, leaving Vol to chase him in darkness.

The Grand Lord growled before he replaced his lightsaber to his belt, which was the only thing lighting the way before him, and discharged a torrent of Force-lightning from both hands along the darkened path before him.

But when the electricity lit the way, it only struck the bulkhead that terminated this junction, as Jacen was nowhere in sight.

And that was because he himself had used a quick burst of Force-speed to exit this corridor at the next intersection to his right; here, with no other Sith present, he activated his lightsaber again to cut a circle into the deck around his feet. Jacen then plunged into the hole right before Vol entered the junction to find that hole.

Naturally, he followed suit to continue his pursuit of Jacen.

. . .

"Does everyone have the coordinates?" Han asked over the Jedi's fleetwide frequency; he managed to dodge the _Falcon_ away from a pair of concussion missiles that was fired by a ChaseMaster as he did so.

"Everyone among the StealthXs has clicked in, Han!" Kyp Durron's voice replied over the frequency. "We can go!"

"Wait, what about Jacen?" Leia asked from the copilot seat.

"What about Jacen?" Han managed to spare a concerned look at his wife before he had to dodge the _Falcon_ from ramming into a Sith-piloted Y-wing.

"He's on one of those ChaseMasters!" Leia exclaimed. "I feel his presence there!"

"He teleported?!" Han exclaimed. "Ah, great! Kyp, I hope you don't mind if we hold out a little longer for Jacen to get back to the _Shadow_?"

"Uh, yeah, but what's he doing on a ChaseMaster in the first place?" Kyp asked with a stressed tone.

"I think I have an idea!" Tekli stated as she struggled to remain standing upright between the pilot and copilot seats. She then asked over the frequency, "Master Horn, when did Jacen teleport out of the _Jade Shadow_?"

"Twelve minutes ago, I think," Corran replied. "But I wasn't really keeping track of time then!"

"All right, people, we'll hold out just a little bit longer," Kyp announced.

. . .

In the darkened hangar bay of the _Uvak's Prey_, only Grand Lord Vol's crimson-bladed lightsaber lit his way.

"You really want me all for yourself, huh, Vol?" Jacen Solo's voice rang out through the bay. "Don't even wanna get any of your goons to join in on this hunt? I'd have thought you'd want them to witness you killing me as payback for that little surprise attack that we Jedi pulled on you back on Kesh."

"Oh, I don't intend to kill you here, Solo. I'll let you live... but not to escape. Oh, no. I'm going to take you in alive so that when I do kill you, it will be a glorious public execution on Kesh. It will be long and grueling for you, and it will be a great day for the Lost Tribe of the Sith. So before this is over, consider this the last moments of peace that you will have in your life."

"Hmm. You know, speaking of moments," Solo said in a much more conversational tone, "how long has it been since I teleported onto your bridge? I seem to have lost track of the time."

"What does that matter?" Vol asked.

"Well, if I'm gonna have some final moments of peace before you capture me and have me sent back to Kesh for a torturous public execution, I'd like to know how long it's been since I surprised you on your bridge."

Vol struggled for a moment to understand why Solo was so interested in how much time had passed before a thought crossed his mind. Then he grinned.

"Before I answer your question, Solo, answer mine: why didn't you simply teleport me back to your ship once you had me in your grasp? It was obvious you wanted me alive."

Only silence answered Vol.

The Grand Lord chuckled. "There's a limit to how often you can perform that technique, is there? And all the while you've been running from me, you've been buying yourself time so that you can teleport again, only with me as your captive. That's it, isn't it?"

Again, Solo didn't answer. And again, Vol chuckled.

"If you want to know how much time has passed, Solo... here's my chronometer." Vol took the aforementioned device from within his robes and tossed it lightly forward, losing it in the dark. "All you have to do is take it. Oh, and for a point of reference, it was about three-thirty-two when you teleported aboard the bridge."

Vol took a few cautious steps forward until the chronometer was within the light of his lightsaber.

The second that it was pulled away by Solo's Force-grip, Vol seized on it and used it as a point of reference to seek out the Jedi's location. The Grand Lord then took hold of Solo through the Force and pulled him bodily toward him until his neck ended up in the palm of his free hand.

Vol leered at Solo, who struggled to breathe as he looked back at him.

Then he held up the chronometer near Vol's face, where the light of his weapon showed that it was 4:03.

Vol's grin dropped as Jacen grabbed onto his shoulders and teleported them.

When next they appeared, they were in the _Jade Shadow_'s passenger cabin, surrounded by all of the Jedi who committed the surprise attack on Kesh (save for Corran and Valin, who were still in the cockpit).

Seeing that Vol was stunned by this, Jacen used that as a distraction to break out of his grip and step away from him. He and all the other Jedi, without hesitation, then Force-pushed at Vol, restraining him in place.

"Master Horn, get us outta here now!" Jacen called out.

"Got it!" Corran called back.

Moments later, after Corran confirmed with the rest of the Jedi fleet that Jacen was back aboard the _Shadow_, they launched into hyperspace.

"You.. can't... hold me... forever!" Vol grunted as he struggled from the Force-trap made by the Jedi who themselves were struggling to keep him in place.

"Just like I didn't have to elude you forever, Vol," Jacen called out, "we don't have to hold you forever, either."

Jacen then allowed himself to briefly drop out of his contribution to keeping Vol in place, causing the Grand Lord to lose his balance and stumble forward slightly.

But before he could recover, Jacen had rushed in at him and slashed away the hilt of the Sith's lightsaber. Then, with the pommel of his own lightsaber, Jacen knocked Vol unconscious with a hard knock to the Keshiri's forehead.

The Jedi around Jacen and Vol then sighed in relief once they released the Force-trap.


	36. Chapter 35

The door to Tahiri Veila's cell opened up, and Imperial Head of State Jagged Fel, with a stormtrooper at each side behind him, walked into it. On the cot at the other end of the cell was a woman who looked over similar to Tahiri—one could even mistake her for the former Jedi with a passing glance—but she had a slightly different face and grey eyes (as opposed to the green eyes that the real Tahiri had). The impostor looked indifferently back at Jag, as if she hadn't just been caught pretending to be Tahiri.

"Who are you?" Jag asked in his most strict and authoritative voice just as the cell door closed behind him and the troopers.

The woman chuckled mildly. "I was wondering when you Imperial idiots were gonna find out I wasn't your prisoner."

Technically, they didn't actually figure it out; when Jaina told Jag about Tahiri's escape from Bastion in their last holocomm call, which took place after the former Jedi's disappearance on Dathomir, Jag had ordered the prison warden to send someone to look in on Tahiri's cell and verify that the prisoner was indeed her.

Apparently, the guard who gave Tahiri food and water everyday hadn't been doing his job properly; he never actually got a solid look at her face until he had been ordered to do so. The warden assured Jag that the guard who was supposed to be responsible for Tahiri would be fired immediately for his incompetence.

But Jag wasn't gonna tell the impostor any of that. Instead, he demanded, "Answer my question."

"It doesn't matter who I am, Fel," the woman said. "What matters is how useful you can be to the Lost Tribe of the Sith."

Jag froze when he heard bones suddenly being snapped from behind him; he turned and watched as his guards suddenly fell dead to the floor from broken necks. He then looked to the woman, who rose from her cot as if it were a throne fit for her.

Before Jag could try to call for security or turn to hurry out of the cell, the Tahiri impostor lifted a hand and restrained him in a bodily Force-grip. Jag heard the cell door open behind him, and a man in a guard's uniform walked in to appraise the captive Head of State.

"Let me guess," Jag said in spite of himself. "You were the guard assigned to Tahiri who did poorly at his job?"

The man nodded. "And in case you're wondering, I already took care of the ysalamir that you had restraining my colleague from using the Force. As for the warden firing me-"

"Kade, enough," the Tahiri impostor snapped. "Let's not waste time explaining everything to the Head of State here; you do your job just as I'm doing mine right now."

The man named Kade looked slightly downcast at his colleague. "Oh, c'mon, Huras, don't you want to do a little reveling at his circumstances? I so want to tell him how we infiltrated the Imperial Remnant just like we-"

"Kade!" the woman exclaimed. "I can only hold him for so long before I get tired!"

Kade sighed. He then turned back and approached Jag to lay a hand on his forehead.

"What do you intend to-"

Jag's question was cut off as he seized up from the initial stage of the trance that Kade had started.

. . .

After Partner's Firespray dropped out of hyperspace, he and Jaina saw through the ship's forward viewport that there were only slightly more than a dozen Bes'uliik starfighters patrolling the world of Mandalore.

Jaina would have remarked that it wasn't much of a defense, but she was still in a bitter mood over Tahiri's dark side-fueled actions back on Dathomir. She only hoped that when she learned who Tahiri got to fill in for her in her cell on Bastion, Jaina would give that person a piece of her mind. But as it was right now, Jaina let Partner take the helm here figuratively as well as literally and hoped that word about Partner working with two Jedi—well, one Jedi and one former Jedi—hadn't travelled here yet.

When Partner received a transmission and answered it, the masculine voice on the other end asked, "What's your business here, Partner?"

"I don't suppose a simple visit to the homeworld for some downtime would be a suitable reason, Djenar?" Partner replied.

"If you're not on any bounties at the moment," Djenar said, "you're helpin' us with the war effort; there's no time for idle strolls on any of the farmland down there."

Partner sighed. "Fine. I'm investigating a warehouse on Mandalore for a job."

"Care to tell me which warehouse, Partner?" Djenar asked.

"Does it really matter?" Partner countered evenly.

"In times of war, everything matters; including why you'd be visiting one of our warehouses for a bounty."

Partner looked at Jaina, who nodded. The Mando looked back and said, "Warehouse 66."

"Warehouse 66? What about it?" Djenar asked.

"I think there may be some _beskar_ in it," Partner explained.

"Well, of course there is, it's a storage facility for _beskar_ for both personal and ship armor."

"Yes, but I think there's some special _beskar_ there that may be tied into this war somehow."

"What are you talking ab-"

Static that was consistent with a jamming frequency cut off Partner and Jaina from hearing the remainder of Djenar's question. Then, out of the fifteen Bes'uliiks that guarded Mandalore, eight of them began soaring toward Partner's Firespray while four others began peppering the remaining three with turbolaser fire.

"Fel, operate the weapons!" Partner ordered as he began putting his ship into evasive maneuvers.

"Hope we're not turning back!" Jaina exclaimed as she manned the weapons controls.

"Not a chance, not at this point," Partner replied as he started a wide circle around the incoming eight Bes'uliiks.

Naturally, the Mando fighters tracked him, preventing him from passing them before they opened fire. In response, Partner took his Firespray into a deep dive before abruptly pulling up, allowing for half the pursuing Bes'uliiks to pass him while the remaining half stayed on his rear to chew at his rear deflectors with their laserfire.

Still, Jaina began to focus her fire on the Bes'uliiks that overshot Partner's Firespray in a wide dispersal pattern; they did very little damage to either their energy shields or reinforced armor before they pulled up and began coming at the Firespray with laserfire of their own.

But by that point, Partner quickly leveled his ship out and shot through the gap in which his enemies had sandwiched his Firespray; he now had a clear path to Mandalore ahead, even if he still had to jink and juke out of the way from fire coming from the rear.

In spite of his attempts, Partner's ship was taking on a heavy amount of fire; by this point, his energy shields were gone and even his reinforced _beskar_ hull plating was starting to buckle.

"Any ideas?" Jaina asked. "I'm doing the best I can here!" Indeed, the laserfire that Jaina directed their enemies' way was still not doing much even when she did land hits.

"Press the button labelled SC!" Partner exclaimed.

It took Jaina a couple of seconds to find the labelled button, but when she did, she landed a fist upon it out of desperation.

"Hang on to something!" Partner said.

But before Jaina could do so, the seismic charge that she had unleashed went off in the midst of the eight Bes'uliiks that were chasing them, completely overwhelming their energy shields and tearing large chunks out of their _beskar_ hull plating; what remained of those ships became lifeless, drifting hulks in the aftermath of the explosion.

Although Partner's ship was out of the blast radius, it was still caught within the concussive shockwave that threw the Firespray forward in an uncontrollable spin toward Mandalore's atmosphere.

"Trying to level out, trying to level out!" Partner exclaimed as he wrestled with his vessel's pilot stick.

Regardless of his efforts, however, they were still spinning even as they entered the atmosphere.

As the Firespray went down, chunks of its _beskar_ armor were being torn away from the friction that she was enduring. Immediately, Partner activated his vessel's backup internal energy shields to keep out the heat, but even now, Jaina was beginning to sweat profusely (she had no idea if Partner's armor gave him some defense from the heat, but right now, she didn't care too much).

"If you don't level out soon, Partner, we're gonna be-"

As if by a miracle from the Force, Partner finally managed to get the Firespray to a leveled descent and was now going down through the atmosphere at a much safer trajectory than before.

Moments later, they were past all the friction and soaring down at a much more leisurely rate in Mandalore's skies; from the copilot seat, Jaina sat back in relief.

"I wouldn't start celebrating yet!" Partner exclaimed. "We got incoming; back to weapons with you!"

Without hesitation, Jaina was back to operating the lasers as Partner once again began evading rear fire from two damaged Bes'uliiks; apparently, they must have been the survivors who killed the three Mandos who weren't in on Warehouse 66.

Jaina was able to take out the one to the left with ease; a few shots to its engines, and it dropped like a stone for some farmland below. The other, however, began jinking and juking in the skies, making it hard for Jaina to get a lock even as her opponent managed to score hits on the Firespray's damaged hull.

After several moments, Jaina got an idea.

"Fel, what are you doing?" Partner asked as Jaina closed her eyes.

"Seeking," she said.

"Look, this is no time to-"

"Got it."

She then had her own laserfire set in a wider dispersal pattern to better track the evading Bes'uliik; a few hits managed to graze its armor, but one pinprick of light found its score.

It only took a single hit at the Bes'uliik's underside to begin a very brief but very fatal chain reaction that ended up cracking the Mando fighter into millions of pieces, as if it were a very large egg. The pilot in it, who hadn't been equipped with a jetpack, began a long, flailing descent for the ground below.

"What'd you do?" Partner asked.

"Found its shatterpoint. You'd be surprised at how easy it can be to destroy something that's seemingly so invincible."

"Hmm. Well, we seem to be safe for now. Let's check out Warehouse 66, shall we?"

:"Yeah."

Minutes later, they finally landed outside Warehouse 66, which looked like a glorified barn in the middle of even more farmland, and both Jaina and Partner disembarked from the Firespray to head to the "barn's" entrance.

A retinal scan, a palmprint scan, and a sixteen-digit passcode was required to even enter the warehouse.

"Mind if I use my lightsaber to cut this open?" Jaina asked.

"That might be a bad idea; could spring a trap," Partner stated. "Besides, I have something to counteract all this."

He then took out a small, black, ocular device from one of his belt pouches and waved it in front of both scans and the number pad for the passcode.

In an instant, they all flashed green and the door opened for them.

"I gotta get one o' those," Jaina said in amazement.

"I'll send you my dealer's number when this is all over," Partner stated as he replaced the device in his pouch; he and Jaina then entered the warehouse.

Indeed, the large interior showcased a large selection of _beskar_ that ranged in use from personal armor to hull plating; but none of that attracted Jaina or even Partner's attention.

Instead, it was what was placed as the literal centerpiece of the warehouse: the remains of Boba Fett's personal Firespray, the _Slave I_.

"Partner?" Jaina asked in amazement.

"Yes?"

"Please tell me you still have that sliver of _beskar_ from Hagamoor 3?"

Without hesitation, he brought it up and out from another pouch. He and Jaina then walked to the _Slave I_ before Partner compared the sliver to the composition of the rest of the damaged ship.

"It's a match," Partner said almost immediately. "So this is what was taken by Velias from Hagamoor 3 and brought to Kendros and his pals; Belok Rhal must have told them to store the _Slave I_ here. My money is that they did it just so Rhal can have it as his own personal trophy for getting Fett killed; and Mirta Gev, not being to step foot on this planet without dying, would never know about it."

"Not unless someone told her," Jaina said.

"She wouldn't believe it," Partner countered.

"Not without evidence, obviously."

"Holocam footage can be doctored; no doubt Rhal can have some buddies tell Gev that's the case."

"Then we're gonna need to get this ship off the planet," Jaina said. "Hopefully, it can still run; and, also hopefully, we'll still have time before whatever backup forces those Bes'uliiks called arrive." She then hurried into the _Slave I_ while Partner returned to his own Firespray.

In spite of its condition, Jaina got it up and running within a few minutes; Fett's legendary ship hardly needed any fixing aside from some minor hull repairs.

With the _Slave I'_s twin blaster cannons, Jaina fired at the roof of the warehouse, blowing open a hole large enough for her to fly the ship out of; Partner's ship followed in her wake as they soared out toward the skies.

And just as both Firesprays made it to space, three whole squadrons of Bes'uliiks dropped out of hyperspace to enter the Mandalore system.

Immediately, from within the _Slave I_'s cockpit, Jaina was getting a holographic transmission that she answered.

"Jaina Solo Fel," the representation of Mirta Gev growled. "How dare you pilot my grandfather's ship, you-"

"Do you know where I got this ship from, Mirta?" Jaina asked.

Mirta stopped as her expression became curious. "You stole it, of course."

"More like liberated; I got it from Warehouse 66 down on the planet behind me. Did you have any idea that it was here and do you know where it was before?"

It was then that a holographic transmission of Belok Rhal interjected itself next to Mirta's curious visage.

"My Mandalore, don't listen to this Jedi liar!" Rhal exclaimed. "She tried to reach out to you before, and you wisely ignored her then as you should now! After all, you only have her word that she got it from-"

"Rhal's manipulating you, Mirta! He killed your grandfather and-"

"Enough of this!" Mirta shouted. "Fel, if you don't surrender that ship to me, I will-"

"You want proof that it was down on Mandalore?" Jaina asked. "Run a trace for any signs of the nanovirus that would affect you because of your lineage to Boba Fett on this ship. Scan the interior!"

"Ha!" Rhal shouted. "That won't prove anything, either! You could have come to Mandalore beforehand to collect some of the nanovirus and put it into that ship to try to fool our leader, Fel!"

"Wait, how could she have come to Mandalore beforehand, Rhal?" Mirta asked.

Behind his helmet, Rhal's expression couldn't be read; but his brief silence heavily suggested hesitation that would correspond to hidden fear.

"Well, she could have had someone do it for her, my Mandalore," Rhal suggested in a tone that Jaina found surprisingly confident.

"You mean one of our own could have been working for her?" Mirta asked.

"Well, yes! After all, she has the Mandalorian known as Partner to-"

"I haven't been to the homeworld for years, my Mandalore," the voice of Partner came over the transmission. "This can be verified through an extensive record of my activities since the end of the Second Galactic Civil War; you'll find that I haven't been to Mandalore until a few minutes ago, and you will find that none of them have been doctored. Would you like me to send them to you?"

"That won't be necessary!" Rhal said. "If not you, then some other traitor in our midst could have done it! My Mandalore, let's not waste anymore time with these _aruetii_ and blow them away to-"

"Silence, Rhal!" Mirta exclaimed.

Rhal, indeed, fell silent.

"Tell me, Jaina," Mirta said. "Can you give me a record of the _Slave I_'s logs?"

"Please give me a moment," Jaina said.

She looked through the ship's records, and...

"They've been deleted!" Jaina shouted.

"Well, then, Fel," Rhal said, "you have no proof to-"

"Check the backups, Jaina," Mirta interrupted.

Jaina did. "They're gone, too."

"You still have one option left," Mirta said. "It was something that my grandfather initiated not long before he died. Look through for records of deletion."

Jaina commenced a systemwide check for evidence of deleted records in the _Slave I_.

"Yes, I found a record of a major deletion of both the main and backup records on... the very date Hagamoor 3 was attacked."

"My Mandalore-" Rhal tried to begin.

"Quiet, you!" Mirta said. "Now, Jaina, since you have evidence that there was a deletion, try to initiate the RRP."

"RRP?" Jaina asked.

"Record Recovery Program," Mirta elaborated.

It took her a few moments, but Jaina brought it up. She then spared Mirta a look. "Would you like me to send you over the records, Mirta?"

"Please, do."

Moments later, after the records were transmitted over to her Bes'uliik, Mirta was looking over the records on her monitor.

"The _Slave I_ was at Hagamoor 3?" she asked. "I was told that my grandfather never made it there!"

"My Mandalore, these are all lies, all fabricated! They-"

"I did a verification scan of the records, Rhal," Mirta growled. "They're authentic. Which means you lied to me; my grandfather did make it to Hagamoor 3. And since he was there on the day it was attacked, that means that a correlation between those two facts isn't unlikely. So then: what else did you lie to me about? Were those stormtroopers actually working for the Imperial government or were they false flag operatives?"

Rhal was silent before Mirta asked, "Well?"

He was still silent before he said, "All forces, move out! We've been had! Go, go, go!"

Several of the Bes'uliiks broke away from the rest of the fleet and were scurrying away,

"Get them!" Mirta commanded to her loyal forces.

Those Bes'uliiks that didn't immediately scurry away began firing at the retreating forms of Rhal and his subordinates; but not one of the treacherous Bes'uliiks were blown away before they launched into hyperspace.

"Jaina, would you and Partner care to join us in hunting Rhal and his ilk down?" Mirta asked.

"I'd love to!"

The remaining Bes'uliiks, and both Firesprays, then launched into hyperspace in pursuit of Rhal and his forces.


	37. Chapter 36

"As I told you, Solo, back on the bridge of my ship," Vol said, "you need to provide at least the pretext of incentive if you want me to cooperate with you."

In Luke Skywalker's quarters aboard the _Jade Shadow_, the Sith Grand Lord was imprisoned in the Force cage that had previously been placed there when Jacen used it for Odrok Degron. But even after being physically suspended from using the Force, Vol looked back at both Jacen and Corran, the only other person in the room, with contempt and, oddly enough, satisfaction. Jacen figured that the Grand Lord was probably thinking that even with the proverbial cards stacked against him, he still, somehow, had the Jedi at a disadvantage.

Jacen hoped to prove Vol wrong as he stared back at him with standard Jedi calm and patience just as Corran did. "I don't suppose," Jacen said, "that you'd be willing to tell us how to restore my uncle back to his normal state of mind without having to kill you and all the other Sith who were involved in the ceremony on Kavan?"

Vol chuckled. "The ceremony was designed to be irreversible; its progenitors never saw any need to reverse it."

"Except through their deaths," Corran chimed in.

Vol looked ruefully at the Jedi Master. "Yes; to keep the effects of the ceremony going for as long as possible, as there hasn't been a way to keep it permanent, those same progenitors bound their lives to its effects; the same is true for all those who follow in their steps, such as myself and the Sith who were on Kavan with me. However, this is something that you already know, so I might as well have told you that water is wet. I refuse to tell you who else was involved in the ritual that created the Force trap that affected your precious Grand Master's mind, especially if it means my death anyway."

"Oh, you don't have to be the one to tell us," Jacen said. "In fact, the person we're about to talk to might not know who exactly was involved in the ceremony, aside from maybe yourself, but he can still give us some pretty valuable information." He then pulled out a portable holocomm from his belt and activated it.

The holographic representation of Saber Odrok Degron stared back at the other imprisoned Sith in shock. "Grand Lord Vol, it _is_ you! When the Jedi told me they had captured you, I thought they were lying! But now that I see for myself..."

Jacen then turned the holocomm so that Degron was facing him. "You have your proof now. So tell us who the High Lords of the Lost Tribe are or your Grand Lord dies."

"He knows nothing of the ceremony!" Vol exclaimed. "Saber Degron, tell the Jedi nothing!"

"Now why would you be so worried if Saber Degron tells us the names of your High Lords, Vol?" Corran asked. "Unless, of course, they all happened to be part of the Force trap ceremony on Kavan?"

The Grand Lord simply sneered, but only after a second of hesitation. "Not all of them were involved in the ceremony. In fact, I had some Sabers involved in it."

"But, My Lord, I thought one had to be a Lord to-" Degron cut himself off as soon as he realized his mistake.

Vol's expression darkened, but he said nothing.

Jacen smirked along with Corran. "You know what I like about you, Saber Degron?"

The Saber said nothing; but even through the static-filled transmission, his embarrassment was evident.

"You tend to drop little tidbits of info without meaning to," Jacen said, "just like when you let slip on Andalia your Grand Lord's name here; you're very useful like that."

Now Vol looked really angry. "You told them my name, Degron?! How stupid can you be?! If I had access to the Force again, I would snap your neck like a twig!"

"My Lord, I am truly sor-" The rest of the transmission was cut off by Jacen before he replaced the holocomm in its pocket on his belt.

"Well, now," Jacen said to Vol, "while Saber Degron did tell us a pretty useful piece of information there, he still didn't give us the names of your High Lords, and I doubt he will; since you told him about what it took to even be part of the Kavan ceremony, you probably also told him what would happen if everybody who was involved in it died.

"However, we do have someone aboard this ship who probably would know."

"I assume you're referring to your young cousin, Ben?" Vol asked. "What makes you think he would know?"

Jacen shrugged. "Well, it can't hurt to find out if he knows."

Once again, Vol sneered. "This is all moot for you Jedi anyway; even if you did learn the identities of the High Lords, you cannot possibly get to them before you're all destroyed. And let's not forget just how limited you are with your ability to teleport, Solo; it can only help you for so long before your luck runs out."

Jacen gave Vol the signature cocky Solo grin, but said nothing before he and Corran turned to leave.

Still, that part of Jacen that always doubted his and the Jedi's chances of success fell easily into agreement with Vol.

. . .

Because Jacen had only one Force cage, which was still being occupied by Vol, the brainwashed Ben had to be watched by at least two Jedi at all times from his own quarters aboard the _Shadow_; right now, he was being looked over by Zekk and Lowbacca.

Corran entered the quarters and regarded Ben, who sat at the foot of his bed; the teenager, who was neither a Jedi (anymore) or a Sith, looked back at Corran with the same scorn that he had been leveling at the two Knights at his room's exit.

"Ben," Corran began, "do you know the names of the Lost Tribe of the Sith's High Lords?"

Like Vol before him, Ben sneered. "Even if I did, what makes you think I'd cooperate, _Master_ Horn?" His address of Corran sounded like a mockery of his title. "You Jedi are too weak to resort to something like torture; especially on someone who used to be one of your own."

"You're not a Sith, Ben," Corran stated. "You're not one of them; you're a Jedi like us."

Ben hissed. "Jedi! Ha! As if I wanna go back to that life!"

"Why wouldn't you?" Corran asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

Corran was silent for a moment. "It's because of that girl, right? Vestara?"

Ben's scowl deepened. "So Jacen told you about her."

"We're not talking about Jacen right now, we're talking about you and-"

"Why doesn't he come in here? What, is he scared of me? He has two Jedi Knights and a Master on his side and he's afraid to take me on?" He then shouted, "Come on in, Jacen! I know you're out there! You can hide your Force-presence from me, but I know you're out there! So don't try to use Horn here to fight your battles for you!"

"Ben, this-"

Corran was cut off from saying anymore when Jacen entered the room.

"It's okay, Master Horn. I can do this myself; Ben and I can't avoid this."

"Jacen, are you sure you wanna-"

"Hiding out there while you take care of this will get us nowhere; Ben and I need to settle this once and for all by ourselves." Jacen looked over at his friends. "Zekk, Lowie, you, too; you can go."

Corran nodded his approval at the aforementioned Knights; the three of them then left the room, leaving Jacen and Ben alone.

The teenager stood up from his bed and crossed his arms across his chest. "So... you wanna give me a lightsaber so we can really settle it?"

"That's not what I had in mind and you know it."

"No, of course it's not! You're too much of a coward to-"

"Oh, I'm a coward? I'm a coward? I'm not the one who's been deliberately avoiding me for the past few months because I can't accept that-"

"This has nothing to do with acceptance!"

"Yes, it does, Ben! You can't accept that I'm not Caedus and that you can't get closure for your mother's-"

"Don't you dare bring her up!"

"Why not? I'm not the one who killed her, yet you seem to think I somehow did!"

"Shut up, Jacen! You had no right to come back into my life! Especially not after Ves brought me happiness!"

"Ben, Ves was lying to you this whole time! She never told you what she truly-"

"What she truly was? Because the Jedi ways blinded me to where real happiness can come from!"

"Ben, the dark side of the Force is merely an illusion of happiness! Everything about it is just-"

"Oh, who are to talk? You don't even believe in the light or dark sides of the Force! You think that everything just is or whatever! Well, guess what? If there's a dark side of the Force, it comes from the Jedi, not the Sith!"

"What makes you say that, Ben?"

"Because the Jedi limit themselves!"

"How so?"

Ben growled as tears were starting to form in his eyes. "All my life, I've been taught to control my emotions! Whether it was your clone or my dad or my mom, I was taught the Jedi creed; there's no emotion, only peace, and all that crap! But Caedus, he... he hurt me, Jacen! He made me do some awful things during the war, he killed my mom, he nearly took everything from me! And I only survived because of the family I had left, like my dad, and the satisfaction I took when the man I thought was you died! When that happened, I thought everything was right in the galaxy, even if Mom was gone; and I thought then that choosing the path of the Jedi, the oh-so righteous path, was the right thing to do."

"But then I came in."

"Yes, you came in! You ruined everything! Because even after it was proven that Caedus was just your clone and that you had nothing to do with what happened to me, something in me just... ripped open! All the assurance, the satisfaction, the certainty I had when Caedus died was gone, and I was left with the same void I felt when my mom died! You, the man who bears the face of my mother's killer, continue to live while my mom's still dead!

"But you know what really tore at my soul, Jacen? What gnawed at my mind since you came back and you were proven to be you instead of Caedus? A part of me hoped that, one day, my mom would come back into my life and say, 'What, you thought that was me? No, that was just a clone, like Jacen's!' Or something like that! But that never happened! So I went on, seeing you everyday, whether I wanted to or not, with you being a constant reminder that what I thought was justice was a lie, and that not even killing you could make it right.

"But then Vestara came into my life, and the void that I felt was gone! And when I became a Sith, I felt complete, overjoyed with her! I felt free, freer than I ever did as a Jedi, even when I thought that Jacen Solo and Darth Caedus were one and the same and were both equally dead! Now you've taken me from what made me feel complete and you expect me to cooperate with you? How dare you! How dare y-y-y-y..."

Ben trailed off as he completely broke down sobbing; he let himself collapse to his knees before curling himself into a fetal position on the floor.

After a while, Jacen sat down next to him and tenderly, gingerly, held him close as his cousin continued to cry.

As the time passed, Jacen could sense a great deal of confusion in Ben's mind; and it wasn't simply from the overwhelming emotions that he was experiencing. Indeed, whatever method that the Sith had been using to corrupt Ben's mind seemed to be washing away, as if his tears were a much-needed shower to get rid of all the dirt and grime that their rhetoric and emotional manipulation represented.

Jacen knew that it would be a long time before Ben could be completely healed from whatever the Lost Tribe had done to him. But if he thought he knew anything, Jacen thought that he could help Ben every step of the way in his recovery.


	38. Chapter 37

"Chief Daala, I cannot in good conscience agree to this," Chief Bwua'tu said. "As a civilian, you have no place endangering yourself in this upcoming invasion."

From her seat in one of the guest chairs of Bwua'tu's office aboard the Star Destroyer _Admiral Ackbar_, Daala glared at the Bothan.

"You forget, Chief," Daala said, "that I was a military officer just like you. I am perfectly capable of handling myself in situations like these."

"Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is is that you are a civilian now. Moreover, I do not have the authority to give you back your commission because you served as an Imperial officer, not as a New Republic or Galactic Alliance one. Therefore, it would go against my duty to bring you into a war zone even by your direct command."

Daala then waved her hand. "You will allow me to come to the Hapes Consortium."

Bwua'tu looked at her in askance. "You are not a Force-sensitive, Chief Daala," he said earnestly; had she been of a lower rank than him, it was obvious that he would have been more snide with her. "And even if you did, my species is incapable of being persuaded by mind-tricks. Also, at any rate, I just told you I cannot in good conscience-"

Daala repeated the motion. "You will allow me to come to the Hapes Consortium."

This time, Bwua'tu felt a slight tingle in the back of his head. "No, I cannot-"

Another wave of her hand came and went. "You will allow me to come to the Consortium."

The tingle traveled to the foremost part of Bwua'tu's mind. "Chief Daala, I must insist that you-"

"You will not insist anything, Nek. You will allow me to come with you to the Hapes Consortium." Another wave of her hand followed.

The tingle in Bwua'tu's mind became more of a dull ache. "Chief Daala, you..."

"Let me come." Another hand motion from her followed.

The ache became much more pronounced; Bwua'tu had to grasp at his temples in pain as he looked down upon the desktop.

"You cannot overcome my authority, Nek. You will do as I say; my word is law. Now let me come with you to the Hapes Consortium."

Bwua'tu hissed as the pain in his head seemed to reach its apex; he was on the verge of screaming when it promptly disappeared.

But when it did, he looked back at Daala, as if nothing happened at all, and said, "Of course, Chief Daala. I was wrong to even attempt to subvert your authority."

Daala grinned maliciously. "Good, Nek, good. That's a good Bothan." She even reached over and patted him on the head as if he were a docile dog; indeed, Bwua'tu responded with a satisfied growl.

. . .

Tahiri didn't know what exactly she was drinking as she sat at the counter in the Mos Eisley cantina; she had only asked the bartender to give her some of his best stuff, and he replied by giving her several shots of something fiery yet satisfyingly intoxicating.

That was just fine by her.

But while her senses were dulled, Tahiri still had the wherewithal to look around the cantina, expecting someone—whether it'd be a Mandalorian, a Jedi, or even a stormtrooper or two—to suddenly appear and take her in for all she had done, if not outright kill her.

She had a feeling that this was going to be her life from this point on; always looking over her shoulder even when she allowed herself to get inebriated like this. Tahiri knew that a part of her wished that someone would just come on by and either shoot or stab her in the back and end it all; she wondered why that part of her didn't just allow her do the deed herself instead of waste time on alcoholism.

Before she could come up with even a half-baked answer to that question, the bartender changed the channel on the viewscreen that was positioned just above his station; the image went from the end of grav-ball match to that of a news report from _The Perre Needmo Newshour_.

What Needmo reported brought Tahiri most of the way out of her inebriation as her attention became arrested upon the viewscreen.

"In a shocking turn of events in the war between the Imperial Remnant and the nation of Mandalore," Needmo stated, "Head of State Jagged Fel has issued this announcement."

The image cut from Needmo to Jag on a podium, with the Imperial Capital Building behind him, as he spoke.

"A day ago, I was contacted by the Mandalorian mercenary Belok Rhal, who has sought asylum, along with all of his fellow soldiers, from the tyrannical leadership of Mirta Gev. According to Mr. Rhal, Mandalore Gev's grief for her grandfather has driven her so insane that she has become paranoid, claiming that many of her own soldiers have conspired against her to undermine her fiefdom and somehow tarnish the legacy of Boba Fett. As a result, many Mandalorians were summarily executed without a fair trial under Gev's iron fist, prompting Mr. Rhal and his forces to splinter from her and assist our brave stormtroopers and TIE pilots in our war against the mainstream Mandalorians."

During this brief speech, Tahiri really looked at Jag—the way he spoke and his stoic facial and body expressions—and saw that while it was typical of him, there was something eerily droid-like in his delivery this time around.

As if he wasn't really in control of his own faculties.

That, and the fact that the evidence that Tahiri, Jaina, and Partner had been investigating pointed at Rhal as the shadow instigator of the war between the Remnant and the Mandos. So, clearly, something was very terribly wrong.

Sifting through the disorganization of her drunken mind, Tahiri tried to make sense of why Jag was making such a bold, and quite frankly stupid, decision.

Then, as Perre Needmo's report went on in greater detail, it struck Tahiri; how she was freed from Bastion would explain a lot of things.

Not long after she had been incarcerated in that prison for killing Velias and for nearly killing Partner, Tahiri was visited in her cell by someone who looked almost exactly like her and who happened to be wearing the same prison uniform that she had worn, with the same serial number above her left breast.

The guard had allowed this near-lookalike into the cell, and Tahiri had stood up from her cot and asked her, "Who are you supposed to be? My biggest fan? The dye job's pretty nice."

The other woman regarded Tahiri with an amused smirk. "Why, thank you; it was really quite easy to get this color. But, obviously, that's not important right now. What is important is that you need to get back to doing whatever it was you were doing before that Mando brought you here as soon as possible. You have a ship waiting for you at these coordinates; it's pretty fast, probably faster than whatever that bounty hunter's Firespray is equipped with." The woman tossed Tahiri a datapad from within the shirt of her prison uniform, which the former Jedi caught. "I assume you remember where you were going before you were brought here?"

Tahiri looked at her apparent savior in askance. "As a matter of fact, yes. But you didn't answer my question: who are you? And, more importantly, why are you helping me?"

"If I said I was your biggest fan, would that answer your questions?"

Tahiri was silent for a contemplative moment before she said, "I guess it'll have to do."

Moments after that discussion had ended, it was very easy for Tahiri to escape the prison with her Force-powers returned to her; the security feeds were scrambled without any problems, and the guards all seemed to be persuaded to forget her passing with a few simple hand gestures. Tahiri also managed to make it to the coordinates of her waiting Imperial ship with a similar level of ease, and at that point managed to make it to the Mandalorian R&R station just an hour ahead of Jaina and Partner.

Now she was here, in a cantina on Tatooine, remembering those events.

Whoever that person was who freed her, it was obvious that her reasons for freeing Tahiri from prison and allowing her to rejoin Partner and Jaina, temporary though that might have been, were far from selfless.

Tahiri had a feeling as if she was going to regret this in the future, but when she paid her tab, she left the cantina with no intention of coming back and every intention of learning what that near-lookalike had to do with Jag's alliance with Rhal.


	39. Chapter 38

When Mirta Gev's Bes'uliik fighters and the Firesprays that were piloted by Jaina and Partner dropped out of hyperspace, they saw three Imperial Star Destroyers blocking the path of their quarry, Belok Rhal and his fighters.

Jaina smirked. While she didn't send any messages to Jag or any of the top-ranking officers who were under his command about the changed circumstances about Rhal's standing with Mirta, she was still glad that the Destroyers were here to finally put an end to this pointless war.

However, before Jaina could send a message to any of the Imperial capital ships, all three of them opened fire on her, Partner's Firespray, and Mirta and her fleet.

In spite of the resultant confusion, Jaina veered the _Slave I_ off to port to avoid one of the giant lasers before taking the Firespray in for a dive beneath the rest of the incoming fire.

As she continued to dodge the turbolaser fire from the Destroyers, it occurred to Jaina that the capital ships must have thought that the Mando ships were all still together instead of now being at odds. Immediately, she managed to open up a channel on an Imperial frequency while still dodging the Destroyers' lasers.

"Imperial Star Destroyers, this is Jaina Solo! Ceasefire on the Mandalorian ships! There's been a change of circumstances with the Mandalorian situation!"

"Jedi Fel?" the voice of Admiral Vitor Reige chimed in. "What are you doing with the Mandos?"

"Like I said, there's been a change in the-" The _Slave I_ took a nasty hit to her stern that bucked Jaina in her seat, prompting her to swing to starboard and begin peppering laserfire on the Rhal-aligned ship that fired on her. "There's been a change with the Mandos! Mirta Gev and Belok Rhal are no longer aligned!"

"We know that, but why are you..." Reige's voice trailed off in confusion before he asked with more clarity, "Wait, are you fighting with Gev or Rhal?"

"Gev, obviously!" Jaina exclaimed as she blew away the Bes'uliik that she had been tracking. "Rhal's been the instigator of this whole war!"

"Not according to your husband," Reige replied. "He made a deal with Rhal yesterday; his forces are now aligned with the Imperial Remnant."

"What?!" Jaina shouted in shock. The _Slave I_ then took a hit to port, knocking her off to starboard and colliding against a dead Bes'uliik hulk. "Why would he do that?! He's suspected that Rhal's been behind this just like I did and-"

"If you'll excuse me, Jedi Fel, I have an incoming message from your husband," Reige interrupted.

"Well, put him through!" Jaina said as she pulled the _Slave I_ into a rapid ascent from a Bes'uliik that had been peppering her rear with laserfire.

"Jaina, what are you doing?" Jag's voice asked. "Why are you fighting with Gev instead of Rhal?"

"You know why!" Jaina replied as she made a tight turn to blow away the next Bes'uliik. "He's the bad guy here! What's this I hear Reige say that you and he are allies now?"

"You betrayed me, Jaina," Jag said. "You're an enemy to the Imperial Remnant just like Gev."

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Jaina exclaimed; right now, she was too busy fighting for her life to be that shocked by what her husband was saying... or by the robotic tone in which he was speaking.

"Consider this a divorce," Jag said. "Admiral Reige, you have permission to destroy my ex-wife."

The intensity of the turbolaser fire from the Destroyers was renewed upon the _Slave I_, making it more difficult for Jaina to duck and weave the Firespray even if she stopped having to contend with Rhal-aligned Bes'uliiks.

"All remaining Mandalorian fighters!" Mirta's voice called over the Mando frequency. "Retreat! Retreat!"

Jaina managed to escape with the rest of Mirta's fleet as they turned tail and jumped into hyperspace.

It was only then did the shock and gravity of the situation with Jag, sudden as it was, fell in on Jaina's mind; she couldn't even find it within herself to cry as she tried to process just what the hell happened.

. . .

In his quarters aboard the _Jade Shadow_, Ben was just finishing up his relay of the names of the Lost Tribe of the Sith's High Lords to Jacen, Corran, and Octa.

"...and Ivaar Workan," he concluded. "Unfortunately, I don't have any holographs of them to show you what they look like, but I can describe them for you."

"That won't be necessary, Ben," Jacen said. "Just tell us this; since your time off Kesh, you know, before we rescued you, you were aboard one of the ChaseMasters, as you told us?"

Ben nodded. "Yeah, that's right."

"Do you know if they, or at least the one you were aboard, have a database on Kesh and the Lost Tribe?" Jacen asked.

Ben looked away as he tried to remember; Jacen, Corran, and Octa gave him some time, given the fact that Ben wasn't exactly in a sober state of mind during his time with the Tribe.

The teenager looked back at the Masters and Jacen. "Yes, they do. During the trip from Kesh to Kavan, Vestara showed me that in case any of the ChaseMasters were to suffer a similar fate as that of the _Omen_, the ship that had brought the Tribe's ancestors to Kesh in the first place, then the stranded Sith can have something to look back on; they could know what their birthright was. So, yes, any one of the ChaseMasters should be equipped with a database on Kesh and the Tribe."

"Thank you, Ben," Jacen said. "We'll leave you alone for now. You should get some rest; we don't know how far behind the Lost Tribe's ChaseMasters are from us. But we do know that we'll be making it to Zonama Sekot very soon."

Ben looked at Jacen in askance. "I thought it would have taken us all a long time to get there even knowing where it was."

"Well, that's kinda the thing about the Unknown Regions," Jacen replied. "There are some hyperlane corridors that can make the trip a little bit quicker than usual. See ya, Ben."

"Wait," the teenager said, stopping the three Jedi from leaving. "You only really needed me to know if any of the ChaseMasters had a database that you could use. At that point, you didn't really need me to tell you the names of the High Lords."

"Maybe not," Corran was the one to say. "But it's good to get information corroborated."

Ben looked concerned. "You don't trust me?" he asked.

"I trust you, Ben," Jacen said. "However, Masters Horn and Ramis are a little bit more skeptical."

"Because of what the Sith did to me," he said, looking down to his feet. "Because of what Vestara did to me."

Jacen placed a comforting hand on his cousin's shoulder, prompting him to look back up at him.

"When this is over, I'll help you through this, Ben," Jacen said. "Don't you forget that."

The teenager smiled; whatever hostility that he had for his cousin was essentially gone at this point. And if there was any lingering animosity in Ben's soul, Jacen couldn't detect it; but if it ever came up, he knew that he would, indeed, help Ben through it.

"But like I said, get some rest," Jacen said. He, Corran, and Octa then left the room.


	40. Chapter 39

While Octa returned to the _Jade Shadow_'s passenger cabin, Jacen and Corran headed to the ship's cockpit.

"How much further do we have until we reach Zonama Sekot, Valin?" Corran asked his son.

At the vessel's helm, Valin looked over at the time indicator and said, "A little less than an hour at this point, sir."

"All right, keep us posted," Corran said before he and Jacen turned to rejoin the others in the passenger cabin.

"Wait," Valin said, prompting the other two Jedi to turn back. "I'm picking up an anomaly, I think it might be a black hole or something. I'm dropping out for a course correction."

Valin then pulled down on the hyperdrive lever to drop the _Shadow_ out of hyperspace.

But instead of ending up in the same system as a black hole, the _Shadow_ found herself facing the ChaseMaster fleet instead.

"Valin, let me take the helm!" Corran exclaimed. "I'll get us outta here!"

It was then, just as the _Millennium Falcon_ and the Jedi StealthX fleet dropped out of hyperspace, that one of the ChaseMasters locked onto the _Shadow_ with a powerful tractor beam and kept her in place.

And just as Corran sat himself in the pilot seat that Valin just vacated, the _Shadow_ received a ping that was characteristic of an incoming transmission.

"Oh, screw that!" Corran said.

"Master Horn, wait," Jacen said as he laid a hand on his shoulder. "I think we should hear them out."

Corran looked at Jacen as if he had just said that they should all eat cyanide tablets. "Are you crazy, Jacen?!"

"They're not firing on us, and I don't sense any hostile intent," Jacen pointed out. "And the fact that they have us in a tractor beam and haven't destroyed us should indicate that they wanna talk."

"Yeah, probably because they want their Grand Lord back," Corran countered.

"Of course they would," Jacen agreed. "But this could just be the opportunity I could use to get aboard their ship and download some holograms of what each of their High Lords look like." He then answered the hail, much to Corran's chagrin.

The holographic representation of High Lord Ivaar Workan appeared over the _Shadow_'s console.

"Jacen Solo," Workan said without preamble, "let's make a trade: give us back both Grand Lord Vol and your cousin Ben and we will allow you and the rest of your Jedi fleet to live. We don't care about Sith Saber Degron anymore; you can kill him if you like."

Jacen smirked. "Nice try, Workan, but you're gonna have to do better than that. Also, you forget that we Jedi don't kill unarmed prisoners."

"I thought you might be less than receptive to this deal, Solo," Workan replied.

The image then shifted from Workan to that of Vestara.

"Where's Ben?" she asked.

"He's none of your concern anymore, Khai," Jacen said.

"Oh, yes, he is," she said, "especially since he's the father of my child."

Jacen froze alongside Corran and Valin at that sudden bombshell of news.

"That's right, Solo," Vestara said. "Ben impregnated me; and I want him back so he can raise our child together."

Jacen gritted his teeth. "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"Allow me to come aboard your ship," Vestara said. "I'll come alone, if it'll make you feel safe. Not that I want to endanger my child, which I'll let you feel through the Force."

"Even if I believed you, Khai," Jacen said, "I won't let Ben return to the Lost Tribe; and you and I both know that your people have no intention of keeping their word about our lives. And at any rate, Ben's not interested; whatever you did to his mind, we helped him out of it."

"Is that what you think?" Vestara asked.

One of the _Shadow_'s sensors beeped and Corran looked at it.

"The X-wing in the _Shadow_'s aft docking bay has launched," he reported.

Jacen then looked out through the forward viewport and found that the X-wing that Luke tended to pilot was soaring, of its own volition, to the ChaseMaster that had anchored the _Shadow_ in space.

"Ben!" Jacen exclaimed.

Vestara smirked before the holographic representation returned to being that of Workan's visage.

"Now, Jedi Solo," the High Lord said, "if you would be so kind to teleport yourself and Grand Lord Vol to the bridge of the ChaseMaster before you, we will allow you to return to your yacht with the X-wing that Ben will leave behind. And then we can all go our separate ways; oh, and if you try to bring one of your Jedi friends with you instead of our Grand Lord, or if you come by yourself, Ben will die. It would be a shame for Vestara, but one I think she can live with." The grin he leered at Jacen didn't even try to hide the thinly-veiled lie that he spouted about letting the Jedi live.

But while Workan thought he had nothing but the upper hand here, Jacen managed to keep the surprise from his face; not at how poorly the High Lord contained his deceit, but by the fact that he just invited him to come aboard the ChaseMaster (even if he did have to bring a fully powerful Vol with him).

"As you wish," Jacen ultimately said. He then cut off the signal before turning to Corran. "Master Horn, you do what you can to get this ship out of that tractor beam. I'm gonna get aboard that ship."

"You're not seriously thinking about complying with them, are you?" Corran asked.

"Oh, I won't give them back Vol," Jacen said. "But I am going to save Ben, even if I won't be able to come back with any holographs of the High Lords. Wish me luck."

"Good luck," Corran said with a raised eyebrow.

Jacen then closed his eyes to initiate the Aing-Tii teleportation method and locked onto Ben's Force-signature as he did so.

. . .

After Ben docked his father's X-wing in the port that the ChaseMaster let him have, he jumped out of the canopy and rushed over to a waiting Vestara.

They embraced each other in a warm hug, and Ben managed to feel the life growing inside Ves. He pulled back and was about to say, "I've missed you so much," when Jacen suddenly appeared off to his left.

And just as Ben and Ves looked over at him, a dark-haired female Sith Saber suddenly jumped out from the open canopy of a nearby Y-wing, where she had been hiding, with her lightsaber active and heading for Ben.

Jacen Force-shoved both Ben and Ves away from the descending Saber; the Sith's lightsaber only ended up carving a small swath on the deck before she landed in a feral crouch.

She then looked up at Jacen, who had his own lightsaber out and active. He and his opponent then rushed toward each other and began clashing blades.

Only seconds later, however, did the Sith from the other starfighters around them leap from their own canopies and surround the duellists with their own blades.

When Jacen realized that he and his opponent were surrounded, the latter disengaged by executing three back-flips to join the ring surrounding the Jedi Knight.

They all looked upon him with vicious, predatory gazes, while Jacen looked at each one of them with typical Jedi calm and patience.

"Wait," the woman he had briefly dueled said. "Before we kill him, let's make good on High Lord Workan's threat; Jedi Solo here should know the price for such deceit against the Sith."

She then looked back over at Ben and unleashed a torrent of Force-lightning that immediately brought the teenager to his knees; he screamed in agonizing pain as he was bathed in the lightning.

As Vestara looked on in horror, Jacen put on a burst of Force-speed to try to strike down the woman torturing Ben, only for one of the Sabers to trip him with the Force; he ended up right at the torturer's heals, and one of the Sabers next to her pinned him in place, where he was unable to do anything but watch Ben get electrocuted to death.

But before that could actually happen, a different torrent of Force-lightning from Vestara shot toward the fuel tank of one of the X-wings, causing an explosion that rocked the hangar bay and threw everyone off their feet.

Just as Ben was freed from the Force-lightning, so, too, was Jacen freed from the Force-pinning. And when he got up, he saw that the Sith began scrambling to their fighters or into the ChaseMaster proper, as the X-wing explosion began a chain reaction that resulted in the fighters beside it blowing up, too.

Hurriedly, Jacen saw that Vestara was dragging Ben by the shoulder to a Z-95 Headhunter that was far from the initial reaction point; as she did, she threw a dagger from her belt into the back of a Saber that was heading for the Headhunter.

When Jacen and Vestara locked gazes for a brief moment, she only nodded at him; Jacen only grimaced before he hurried over to the X-wing that Ben had taken to get here.

Soon, Luke's X-wing, as piloted by Jacen, managed to blast out of the ChaseMaster's hangar bay before quickly circling around in the midst of the other starfighters emerging from it; with a few laser shots from Jacen, the ChaseMaster's tractor beam emitter was reduced to slag, freeing the _Jade Shadow_ from her captivity.

And not a moment too soon, for that was the point when the ChaseMasters decided to once again open fire on the Jedi fleet.

As Jacen found himself engaged in a dogfight with a red-marked X-wing, his father's voice came over the Jedi fleet frequency.

"Jacen, where's Ben, is he all right?" Han asked.

Just after Jacen managed to duck beneath his opponent and blasted him away with a few well-placed shots at his underbelly, he replied with, "He's free... I think." He then veered out of the way of an incoming Sith Y-wing, which then ended up firing on his tail.

"What do you mean you think?" Han asked.

Jacen executed a quick barrel roll before diving in and coming up so that he ended up facing the Y-wing, which he promptly destroyed with a couple of quad shots.

"Vestara saved him," Jacen elaborated. He took a hit to starboard, prompting him to snap-turn right to cover his flank as he opened fire on the B-wing that attacked him and destroyed it.

"She saved him?" Han came back. "What are you talking about?"

"She took Ben in a Z-95 Headhunter," Jacen responded before he rolled out of the way of a Y-wing that was about to collide with him. "I'm gonna keep try to tabs on 'em."

As if on cue, he found the Headhunter that bore the markings of the one that Vestara took; and as if to dash Jacen's hopes, it launched into hyperspace.

Jacen hissed as he hurriedly tried to get a lock on the coordinates before all chances of tracking them were lost.

But that chance was lost when yet another Y-wing dropped in front of him and launched a proton torpedo for him.

Jacen once again veered out of the way of the torpedo so that he could pepper the Y-wing's left flank with laserfire; it was quickly destroyed.

But now Jacen had lost all trace of where Vestara and Ben went.

"No!" Jacen screamed.

"Jacen, we have to go!" Corran said called over the Jedi frequency. "We have to get to Zonama Sekot! We can rescue Ben later! Come on!"

Jacen growled, but he reluctantly turned around and joined the rest of the Jedi fleet, besieged though they were by the Sith forces, and managed to get far enough away from the ChaseMasters and their starfighters to jump to hyperspace.


	41. Chapter 40

Securing passage off of Tatooine was much easier than Tahiri expected; then again, considering the fact that her ride off her homeplanet was a bounty hunter (thankfully, not a Mandalorian this time) who asked virtually no irrelevant questions, Tahiri figured that this guy had probably met worse clientele than her in his vague past.

He was a Devaronian who went by the codename Bringer and he had a whole slew of false identities and fake transponders for his ship, a modified HWK-290 with no actual name to her. With the credits that Tahiri had from her personal bank account, which had nothing to do with any of the major galactic powers, Bringer had no problem bringing her all the way to Bastion, even if it meant running the risk of winding up in the middle of the war between the Imperial Remnant, now aided by Belok Rhal and his mercs, and Mirta Gev's Mandalorians.

After Tahiri boarded the HWK, Bringer stood up from his seat in the pilot's chair and met her in the ship's short corridor.

"Ready to leave?" the Devaronian asked.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Tahiri replied.

"Good," Bringer replied.

He suddenly whipped out a crimson-bladed lightsaber from his tunic that he immediately activated and charged at Tahiri. The latter, however, managed to block the strike before engaging defensively against her false transporter.

Tahiri managed to stand her ground and hold off Bringer for about half a minute before locking lightsabers with him and looking him directly in the eyes.

"You're not a real Devaronian," Tahiri said as she really got a look at his features; they had a fake, plastic-looking quality when viewed this closely. "Those are all prostheses."

"Now you catch it," Bringer replied with a self-satisfied grin.

He then broke out of the lightsaber lock before unleashing a flurry of attacks that managed to drive Tahiri back a few steps. But once again, she managed to find her footing again and reestablished her defensive technique.

"If you were spying on me," Tahiri asked between strikes, "why didn't you come to me before... to try to... kill me then?" Her opponent's attack became a little too aggressive for her again, prompting her to retreat a couple steps before planting her feet to the deck once more.

But Bringer didn't press his attack; instead, he backed up a few steps and held his blade up as defensively as Tahiri.

"Some colleagues of mine were interested to see if you would make for a fine recruit," Bringer explained. "The dark side is quite strong in you, Miss Veila."

"Thanks for noticing," Tahiri replied facetiously. "But I take it that you deduced that I'm not interested?"

Bringer nodded. "I also sense your concern for Jagged Fel from that little announcement he made."

He then advanced quickly to try to attack Tahiri, only to be countered by her defensive strikes.

But her defenses were soon overwhelmed by his superior fighting skills and he managed to spin toward her before knocking her to the deck with a kick to her stomach; her lightsaber clattered from her grasp, allowing Bringer to sever it in two.

Bringer brought the tip of his lightsaber close to Tahiri's face before he said, "In spite of your dark side potential, your concern for your friends is strong, Veila. I see now that you needed more persuasion; my colleagues thought that you might have been able to turn to the dark side on your own when they freed you, that you might have foiled that investigation with that Mandalorian and Jaina Fel; they were wrong."

"Yeah, I ended up helping them out; threw a hydrospanner into that plan, huh? But you thought I could still have another chance here, right?"

Bringer nodded again. "I had this idea where I'd allow you to wallow in your misery for a while, allow yourself to break your own spirit on alcoholism. Then, when you were at your lowest point, I would be your savior, maybe in a romantic sense if it came to that, and take you to the Lost Tribe of the Sith. Now I see that your darkness is one that still allows you to feel for your friends; that darkness can only take you so far." He shrugged. "Oh, well. No big loss in the end."

Bringer was about to plunge his lightsaber through Tahiri's throat when the latter managed to erect a Force-shield around her that deflected the blade off to the side; she then extended the Force upward and outward, blowing Bringer to the deck.

Tahiri then leaped to her and pounced on Bringer, pinning his wrists at either side so that he couldn't move his lightsaber toward her. She then head-butted him right in the nose, unleashing a brief gush of blood that allowed her to yank the lightsaber from his grasp and quickly decapitate him before he could recover.

Tahiri stood up and looked at the glowing red blade in her hands. When she looked over to the two pieces of her lightsaber, she saw that even the crystal had been destroyed.

Now she was left with a Sith blade.

Fine by her; if it would help her help Jag and Jaina, even after they had turned against her, then the Sith lightsaber would serve as a useful tool.

Tahiri deactivated the weapon and hurried to the HWK's cockpit, where she began the takeoff sequence to leave Tatooine for Bastion.

. . .

Emerging in various systems from throughout the Transitory Mists, the Galactic Alliance invasion fleet was caught unawares as all of its Star Destroyers found themselves engaging with fleets of Hapan Battle Dragons before their TIE fighters ultimately went up against the Miy'til fighters.

Standing on the bridge of the Destroyer _Admiral Ackbar_, which was conducting her part of the invasion in the Calfa system, Daala sneered. And her frustration only increased as Chief Bwua'tu, to whom she stood next, received reports from his communications officer about how the other Destroyers in the other systems were now engaging forces that they didn't expect to fight.

While Daala wasn't surprised that the Hapans had prepared for something like this, given that the GA's fleet movements weren't that much of a secret, she realized that she may have underestimated the child Queen Mother Allana in how she ran her precious Consortium. Daala would have thought that she would have been targeted by so many petty, Jedi-hating Duchas who would have vied for her throne, especially since the Consortium, like the GA, was still recovering from Abeloth's Infestation after all these months.

Then again, invasion from outsiders was a good incentive for union, however brief it may be; one only need look to the Yuuzhan Vong and Second Galactic Civil Wars for examples. Not that it would matter, Daala thought, as the Hapans would be quashed before the Jedi they protected were annihilated.

As Bwua'tu conducted the battle in this system, Daala tapped into her Force-potential and reached out to see if a particular little girl was in this system.

After a few minutes, she found that Queen Mother Allana wasn't here.

She then looked over to Bwua'tu, who had taken his command chair and was now in a holocomm conversation with one of his subordinate commanders.

"Chief Bwua'tu," Daala said, cutting off his conversation. "Can you find out where the Queen Mother's Battle Dragon is? I believe it's public record that it's the _Dragon Queen_."

Bwua'tu looked back at the commander to whom he had been speaking. "General Hague, is the Battle Dragon known as the _Dragon Queen_ in your system?"

"Give me a moment, sir," Hague replied. He looked away for a brief moment and the words he called out were indiscernible from this end. A moment later, Hague looked back at Bwua'tu and said, "No, Chief Bwua'tu, the _Dragon Queen_ isn't in the Baldavia system."

"Chief Bwua'tu, cycle through the other generals in the other systems so we can find that Battle Dragon," Daala commanded.

Bwua'tu returned his attention to Hague. "Carry on to the best of your ability, General." He then shifted the frequency to another commander.

As Bwua'tu went through other generals, Daala turned back to look out the viewport at the Battle of Calfa-5. Somewhere out there, Allana was there, and Daala intended to see to it that that little girl would...

"I got it, Chief Daala," Bwua'tu finally said, snapping her out of her reverie. "The _Dragon Queen_ is in the Andalia system."

"Then we shall allow the other Star Destroyers to take over the battle here," Daala said. "Chief Bwua'tu, have the _Admiral Ackbar_ go to Andalia."

"Aye, Chief Daala."

Less than a minute later, the _Ackbar_ was in hyperspace and on a course for the _Dragon Queen_.


	42. Chapter 41

About an hour after Ben was taken once again, the Jedi StealthX fleet dropped out into the system where Zonama Sekot chose as her hiding place.

Jacen couldn't help but notice, along with everyone else in the Jedi fleet, that there were Chiss Star Destroyers as well as Sekotan fighters orbiting Zonama.

Jacen was both surprised and not surprised at this. On the one hand, he was somewhat taken aback by the fact that the isolationist Chiss Ascendancy would offer this kind of protection to the planet that willingly harbored the Yuuzhan Vong. But on the other hand, he remembered the alliance that Sekot had with the Ascendancy in combating the fanatical Superior Chiss, so Jacen supposed that it made sense that the Chiss were willing to offer some forces to protect a valuable ally. He also couldn't help but wonder what happened to the Superior Chiss; in spite of his Jedi upbringing, he couldn't help but hope they'd all been wiped out since he'd been freed from them months before.

A transmission was broadcast throughout the entire fleet from the living world; its Magister, Jabitha Hal, was the one who spoke.

"Greetings, Jedi," she said. "One of your Knights, Tekli, contacted me in advance and explained your situation with this Lost Tribe of the Sith. Although many on Zonama resent you bringing your war to us, Sekot has agreed to help you as repayment for the debt she owes you for bringing the Yuuzhan Vong to us years ago. We have many ships, both our own and from our allies in the Chiss Ascendancy, who are willing to help you in your coming battle with the Sith."

Kyp Durron's voice came over the transmission. "Thank you, Magister Hal; we greatly appreciate this."

"You're welcome, Master Durron; I will now refer you to Admiral Peecar for military questions."

The voice of an elderly male Chiss came over the frequency. "This is Admiral Peecar. How much time do we have before this ChaseMaster fleet drops out for us?"

"I'd say about another half-hour, give or take ten minutes I estimate," Kyp said. "However, given that at one point, they actually managed to get ahead of us through whatever backdoor hyperlane they must have found, I wouldn't be surprised if they got here even sooner than that."

"Very well; we're already well-prepared and well-rested. We will be ready."

Mere seconds later, however, the ChaseMaster fleet dropped out of hyperspace; and in no time flat, the battle over Zonama Sekot began.

. . .

In the hours after Mirta's Bes'uliik fleet, and the two Firesprays that accompanied those starfighters, were chased out of the system where Jag declared his "divorce" from Jaina, the retreating vessels returned to the Mandalore system.

However, before they arrived there, they managed a few hyperspace dropouts where Mirta took the time to make some holocomm calls to several reliable friends and allies to meet them in that system. These calls had to be spaced out between dropouts given that Mirta's fleet couldn't stay in any one system for long before they had to jump again to avoid getting into another firefight with some very angry Imperials with Mando allies of their own who could have dropped out behind them at any moment.

In the first of these hyperspace dropouts, however, Partner transmitted over the Bes'uliik fleet frequency.

"This is Partner; I can't aid you any further here, Mandalore Gev."

"Why not?" Mirta asked; she kept the frequency open so that everyone could hear his answer.

"I work for Jagged Fel," he reminded them. "Now that he's against you, this is where we have to part ways. Besides, my ship needs a lotta repairs; it took quite a beating getting into Mandalore's atmosphere."

"I understand," Mirta replied; her tone conveyed only professional courtesy and lacked any animosity that she might have had toward him for bailing on her fleet. "You do what you need to do."

"Thank you, Mandalore," Partner replied.

A few moments of silence passed as Partner's Firespray reoriented itself back toward Imperial space even as the the Bes'uliik fleet readied itself for another jump back to Mandalore.

"Partner," Jaina finally said over the frequency.

"Yeah, Fel?"

"When you meet up with my husband again, can you find out what's wrong with him?"

"Only if he pays me to do that."

Jaina didn't say anything in response; she just returned to readying the _Slave I_ for another jump with the rest of the fleet. They were all gone mere moments later.

Now, after Partner's departure from the Bes'uliiks, the _Slave I_ had joined the Mando starfighters over Mandalore itself, bolstered as they were by the other Bes'uliiks that Mirta had called in. The reinforced fleet held position in high orbit of their homeworld, looking outward in anticipation of whatever the Imperials would throw at them.

As Jaina waited patiently with the rest of the fleet, a part of her hoped that Partner would go beyond his pithy promise and actually find out what had overcome Jag to make the decision he did. The waiting prompted Jaina to think about how and why Jag sided with Rhal so quickly; could he have been under some mind-control? Sith influence, perhaps? Could the One Sith have returned, or was there some new Sith sect out there?

Come to think of it, Jaina realized, during the course of the events that started since she got herself involved in the investigation with Partner, she hadn't contacted her family or anyone else in the Jedi Order. She figured that Mom and Dad would need to hear about all of this, especially if they hadn't heard about it from the news already.

Jaina was about to open a channel to her parents when over a dozen Imperial Star Destroyers dropped out of hyperspace before the Bes'uliik fleet and began opening fire.

As Jaina immediately dove into a series of evasive maneuvers and firing off the _Slave I_'s laser cannons for the TIE fighters that poured from the Star Destroyers, she managed to feel something that shocked her.

Jag's presence aboard one of those Destroyers; and with him, two Sith who flaunted their presence at Jaina, as if they were deliberately taunting her with the fact that they had her husband under their control.

Because they were deliberately taunting her with this fact.

It was this distraction that brought Jaina into a collision with a Rhal-aligned Bes'uliik, careening her away to be nicked by a Destroyer's giant laser bolt. These shook her out of her shock and brought her back into the game; but as she shot down a TIE fighter that was heading right for her, Jaina still managed to send out a taunt of her own for those Sith.

_I'm coming for you_, she transmitted through the Force.


	43. Chapter 42

Shortly after the _Admiral Ackbar_ dropped out of hyperspace into the Andalia system, Bwua'tu immediately ordered his sensors officers to begin looking for the _Dragon Queen_.

But Daala was already ahead of all of them as she reached out with the Force to look for Allana Djo's presence.

As one of the sensors officers reported the _Dragon Queen_'s placement in the system, Bwua'tu told Daala, "Attacking that ship will require more than what we have here, Chief. We need to call in for reinforcements."

"No need," Daala said with a distracted grin. "Continue with the battle; as you were."

"But," Bwua'tu said, "if you wanted to know where the _Dragon Queen_ was, why wouldn't you-"

Daala glared at Bwua'tu and gave him another mild headache. In an instant, he said, "As you wish, Chief Daala."

With that, she turned back to the forward viewport and concentrated.

_Hello, Allana_, Daala maliciously conveyed through the Force. _It's me, Natasi Daala; and just as my fleet is here to wipe out your precious Consortium and the Jedi, so am I here to end your short, miserable life_.

Daala concentrated harder upon the mind that she felt and then gave the feeling of _squeezing_.

. . .

On the _Dragon Queen_'s bridge, Allana stood between Admiral Serash and Danni Quee, watching the battle in the Andalia system unfold. Prior to the arrival of the _Admiral Ackbar_, the Star Destroyers and Battle Dragons seemed to be evenly matched; now with Nek Bwua'tu's capital ship in the system, the tide of the battle was beginning to ever so slightly turn in the Destroyers' favor as one of the other Dragons began to take serious damage to its bow.

As Serash began barking out orders to her communications officers, Allana's senses became overwhelmed by the voice of the Galactic Alliance's Chief of State Natasi Daala announcing herself and her intention to end Allana's life.

The Queen Mother looked around the bridge in askance, wondering how Daala could be communicating to her in this way, and Danni was the only one present who seemed to notice Allana's plight.

"Allana, are you all right?" Danni asked worriedly.

As soon as the question had been asked, an intense pressure quickly built in Allana's mind to the point that she collapsed to the deck and grasped vainly at her temples as Danni grabbed her to see what was wrong.

It was only then, as Allana started to scream in agony, did everyone else on the bridge notice.

"Get us outta here!" Allana cried. "Doesn't matter where, just get us outta this system!"

"Navigator, plot us a hyperspace course out of here!" Serash ordered. "Medic! We need a medic here!"

In moments, as Allana was carted away to the medbay, the _Dragon Queen_ had turned inward for the interior of the Hapes Cluster and launched into hyperspace.

Moments after that, the _Admiral Ackbar_ followed in her wake.

. . .

Jacen executed a barrel roll out of the way of a Sith-piloted Y-wing before getting a B-wing in his crosshairs and blowing it to smithereens. However, the Y-wing that he had dodged got right on his tail, prompting him to try to shake it loose as it began tracking fire on his rear.

But before Jacen's shields could take any significant beating, a Sekotan fighter zoomed in from his port and blew away the Y-wing.

"Thanks, whoever you are," Jacen said.

"No problem, Jedi Solo," a masculine voice on the frequency replied; the Sekotan fighter then pivoted and launched for an X-wing.

With some space momentarily clear of Sith fighters, Jacen turned and zoomed for one of the Chiss Star Destroyers.

"Admiral Peecar?" Jacen asked.

"Yes, who is this?"

"This is Jacen Solo. I'm gonna need to dock in one of your Destroyers."

"The battle isn't over yet, Jedi Solo," Peecar pointed out with some confusion.

"I know, I know, but I'll need to get aboard one of the ChaseMasters afterwards."

"Wait, how do you intend to get aboard without transportation?"

"I can teleport; but only to a limited extent. Now I'm gonna need to dock so this X-wing doesn't get destroyed in the battle."

"You can teleport?" Jacen practically heard Peecar shrug; no doubt the Chiss Admiral must have been thinking, _That's new_. "Very well. Proceed to the _Ar'alani_; she should be on your scanners."

"Thank you, Admiral," Jacen said before he had to dive beneath an X-wing firing at him; that fighter, however, ended up in a dogfight with one of the StealthXs.

Soon, after a few more bouts of dodging from Sith fire, Jacen finally had the X-wing that he had been piloting docked and wasted no time on initiating the Aing-Tii teleportation method once the fighter was cycled down.

When he opened his eyes, he was on the bridge of one of the ChaseMasters, and was once again surrounded by Sith as he had been before.

But instead of Grand Lord Vol, Jacen was facing High Lord Workan this time.

Immediately activating his lightsaber, Jacen moved to strike down Workan, but the High Lord already had his own lightsaber out and ready to block the strike. The two then traded a few clashes as Workan announced to the other Sith, "Man your stations! This is between me and the Jedi!"

At least that narrowed the number of opponents Jacen had to fight to one, he thought. Too bad it was a much more experienced High Lord who was now gaining ground on Jacen by forcing him back across the bridge with his vicious attacks.

But knowing that he wouldn't win in a straight-up fight, Jacen decided to cheat.

Managing to disengage from the duel, he leaped up and back to land on a control console, which he promptly sunk his blade into.

A second later, the artificial gravity for the bridge went off; everyone present then began floating away from their current positions.

Using that brief confusion to his advantage, Jacen used the Force to fling the surprised Sith Sabers at Workan to distract him. This tactic worked for less than five seconds before Workan, who dodged the flailing Sith that Jacen sent his way, announced, "Everyone, get him!"

It was then that everyone else activated their lightsabers and used the Force to propel themselves over at Jacen.

But once again, the Jedi used telekinesis to knock several Sith off their course, resulting in many of them ending up colliding into one another or even ending up on the wrong end of a lightsaber; those who didn't die didn't emerge unscathed.

However, Workan, not joining in on the "fun," used the Force to anchor himself back to the deck and briefly watched as Jacen began to bound around the bridge. The Jedi daftly avoided the Sith who pursued him in the air and cut down those he didn't have killed or maimed by any of their fellows' lightsabers.

By the time Jacen whittled the number of opponents he had down to three, it was then that Workan launched himself for the Jedi. However, Jacen, sensing the danger coming from below, flipped backward and away from Workan's incoming swipe, which cut across the torso of one of the remaining Sabers.

After Workan turned and launched himself toward Jacen with both remaining Sith, the Jedi cartwheeled off to his right and used the Force to rip open panels and other electronics from the bulkhead to fling at his opponents. The makeshift projectiles distracted the Sith even as they cut their way through them, but Jacen still used that as a distraction to decapitate one of the Sabers.

That left him to briefly duel off against Workan and the surviving, and intact, Saber for about ten seconds. He then used the Force to shove them both back before he launched himself for the Saber; as Workan hit the bulkhead with his back, Jacen traded a few slashes with the Saber before bisecting him down the middle.

Which now left Workan, who stared back at Jacen angrily.

The High Lord then sneered. "Well, now; I can really cut loose." He launched himself at Jacen with a loud battle cry.

. . .

Upon dropping out of hyperspace for another course correction, Tahiri saw a familiar Firespray in the distance suddenly explode.

And rocketing away from that explosion on a jetpack was a similarly-familiar Mandalorian.

With an annoyed look, Tahiri opened up a frequency for Partner. "I take it you have quite a story for me?" she asked once the explosion cleared.

Partner turned in space, his jetpack turned off to conserve fuel; his helmet must have picked up the frequency for him to respond. "Veila?"

"Give me one good reason why I should save your ungrateful ass before your oxygen reserves run out," Tahiri said. "You have an hour or so there? What are the chances you'll be picked up in a system like this? You're lucky I dropped out here when I did."

"Imperial Star Destroyers tried to kill me,," Partner quickly said. "Can I come aboard?"

"Hmm," Tahiri said playfully. "Well, I guess I would like to hear the rest of your story; I guess that'll be enough reason to let you come aboard. But only if you say please."

A moment of silence passed before Partner said, "Please?"

"Good boy."

Once Partner had come aboard the HWK, he laid out what had happened; after he broke away from Gev's fleet, he headed back for Imperial space, only to be fired on by a Star Destroyer fleet. He barely got out in time and suffered severe enough damage that he had no choice but to drop out in this empty system and escape before it blew.

"Guess they wanted you dead for choosing the wrong side," Tahiri said.

"Fel had to have understood that I always worked for him, that it always about the money and that I would never-"

"Not Jag; the Sith who are controlling him."

"Sith?"

"Where was Gev's fleet headed?"

"Mandalore."

"Then we'll go there and tell Gev and Jaina about the Sith and we'll see what we can do there."

Less than a minute later, they launched for the Mandalore system.

. . .

The space around Mandalore was a cavalcade of explosions as Bes'uliiks fought other Bes'uliiks, TIE fighters, and the Star Destroyers that tried to destroy the planet's defenders.

Amidst the fray, Jaina kept herself focused on getting to the Destroyer that had Jag and his Sith puppeteers aboard; yet, even with her superior piloting skills, it was still a challenge to arrive as the _Slave I_ was hit on practically all sides by friendly and enemy fire alike.

Jaina veered off to port to blast away two TIEs before chipping away at a Rhal-aligned Bes'uliik until its engines were blown up; the starfighter then streaked away on its own inertia to burn up in Mandalore's atmosphere. Jaina, meanwhile, took out a TIE bomber before briefly getting into a dogfight with two Bes'uliiks.

She barely managed to defeat one of them by scoring a hit right at the pilot's viewport, but the other one was bobbing and weaving too much for her to get a lock on; and all the while, the pilot was managing to score hit after hit on the _Slave I_'s hull.

Jaina didn't have to wait long to get help, though; from off to starboard, a Bes'uliik that Jaina's sensors identified as being piloted by Mirta Gev came in with a flurry of shots that blew the annoying Bes'uliik away.

"Thanks, Mirta," Jaina said.

"No problem, Jaina. I take it you're trying to get to that Destroyer?"

"I take it you wanna help?"

"You bet I do."

Both women then zoomed toward the intended Imp capital ship.

Within several hundred meters of the Destroyer, however, two Bes'uliiks swooped in from above and began firing on Mirta's fighter and the _Slave I_; both of the latter ships then split off before they ended up being pursued by either Rhal-aligned Bes'uliik.

"Wait, this can't be right!" Mirta exclaimed.

"What is it?" Jaina asked as she jinked and juked the _Slave I_ every which way to avoid the fire from the rear.

"My sensors are telling me... that the Bes'uliik chasing me... belongs to my husband!" Mirta elaborated.

"Ghes?" Jaina asked. "Why would he be firing on you?" She then dove the _Slave I_ downward while executing a barrel roll; unfortunately, the Bes'uliik behind her still kept on her tail.

Again, the Sith taunt reached out to her again.

_You think your husband's mind was the only one we corrupted, Jedi?_ Jaina heard in her head.

The _Slave I_ shook as her pursuer got some shots in from behind; once again, Jaina was snapped back to the physical reality as she put the ship into a steep climb while still trying to avoid the lasers fired at her.

. . .

As the _Dragon Queen_ raced through hyperspace, Allana struggled on the medbay bed where the chief medical officer had her strapped down so that she wouldn't hurt herself. Yet, in spite of the anesthetic that the officer applied, the Queen Mother continued to moan and occasionally scream in her unconscious state.

"What's wrong with her, Doctor?" Danni asked.

"Her neural readings are off the charts!" the C.M.O. replied as she pointed to said readings. "But I can't discover anything wrong! She doesn't seem to have any kind of virus or harmful bioagent in her brain, yet her mind is acting like something's invading it!"

Danni thought for a moment; just before Allana collapsed on the _Dragon Queen_'s bridge, Danni had vaguely felt another presence near the Queen Mother. But because Danni didn't have as strong of a connection to the Force as Allana, she wasn't quite sure what it was, and at the time, she had been preoccupied by Allana's condition to care.

But now that things had more or less calmed down, Danni wondered...

"I'll be right back, Doc," she said before storming out of the medbay for the bridge.

When she arrived, she asked, "Admiral Serash, is the _Admiral Ackbar_ pursuing us through hyperspace?"

Serash relayed Danni's question as an order to one of the sensors officers, who immediately confirmed the answer.

"All right then," Danni said. "Let me see if I can..."

She trailed off as she concentrated, looking to see if there were any presences aboard that Star Destroyer that would...

Danni's eyes flashed open immediately before she stumbled back from the pain in her mind; indeed, there was another presence there, and if Danni didn't know any better, she thought it was...

Daala?

_Yes, Miss Quee_, the voice of the Galactic Alliance Chief of State said in her mind. _It's me; and now that you've made yourself clear to me, you will die with your precious Queen Mother_.

Danni collapsed to the deck just as Allana did; but before anyone on the bridge could tend to her, the _Dragon Queen_ dropped out of hyperspace...

Right in front of what appeared to be a fleet of Star Destroyers.

"Admiral, we're being hailed!" one of the comm officers called out. "It's from one of the Star Destroyers!"

Serash grimaced. "Put it through."

The _Dragon Queen_'s viewport was replaced with the image of a Destroyer's bridge, with a man in the foreground.

"This is General Hague," the man identified himself. "The _Admiral Ackbar_ will be joining us very soon. Until then, Chief of State Daala has ordered me to relay just how we got in front of you to begin with: we managed to break out of our respective engagements along your outer worlds and circled around to cut you off here. The Chief wanted you to know this so that you wouldn't be confused before you were all destroyed."

It was at that point that several dozen Battle Dragons suddenly dropped out of hyperspace to bracket the Star Destroyers in immediate flanking fire.

Serash couldn't help but grin. "I wouldn't pop the champagne just yet, General." She then motioned for the communication to be shut off. "All right, now let's see if we can get past this mothball and..."

"Admiral, the _Ackbar_ has just dropped out behind us!" one of the sensors officers called out.

A second later, Danni screamed even louder in pain; simultaneously, so did Allana in the medbay.

. . .

Indeed, Workan wasn't holding back, because while Jacen did avoid receiving even minor cuts from the High Lord's lightsaber, he was still badly beaten and bruised from the punches and kicks that the Sith doled out in their zero-g duel.

After one such punch in the gut sent Jacen careening back to the bulkhead behind him, Workan sneered and said, "I can do this all day, Solo. So why don't you just give up and die? It'll make it easier on yourself more than me."

As Workan said this, Jacen couldn't help but notice from the already-cooled furrows on the bulkhead behind him that he was leaning up against a wall that was about to give in to the decompression of outer space.

"I'm doing the best I can here, admittedly," Jacen quipped as an idea wormed its way into his head. "It's you who isn't putting his best in, High Lord Workan, if you could end this duel so easily."

Workan growled and once again launched himself at Jacen with what he hoped would be a killing stroke.

But Jacen dodged that one, like he did so many others, by using the Force to pull himself to the deck as Workan sailed past.

And as soon as the High Lord slashed at the weakened bulkhead, he inadvertently opened up a hole into space into which he was unceremoniously blown out.

As Jacen struggled against the pressure that was trying to blow him out, too, he grasped at one of the guard railings lining the bridge that were built for just this purpose. Letting go of his Force-anchorage to the deck, he very slowly walked-dragged himself along the bridge toward its exit.

Eventually, before the air on the bridge completely ran out, he made it to the exit, opened the door, and had it closed shut behind him once he was in the corridor outside.

Well, now that the main bridge wasn't an option anymore, he had to hope that this ChaseMaster's auxiliary bridge would have to do in granting him access to the Lost Tribe's database.

Thankfully, as he made his way to the backup bridge, he encountered no other Sith; they had apparently either all been on the bridge or were out in whatever starfighters they piloted in the battle outside. Thus, once he made it to the second bridge, he sat himself down at an information console and, indeed, there was a database there that had been updated for the current members of the Lost Tribe's Circle of Lords.

Well, not completely updated, Jacen realized, now that Ivaar Workan was no longer part of this world.

Still, as the list of current members was presented to him, he found that each of them was listed a default ChaseMaster that was under their command.

Jacen felt like he was getting an early Life Day.

However, the feeling of such joy was buckled the same as the ChaseMaster that he was on, as it was now taking fire, no doubt by the Chiss Star Destroyers, if not any of the fighters piloted by any of the Jedi or their allies. Quickly, Jacen brought out his datapad and typed in all the relevant information from the console screen before him.

When that was done, the buckling got even worse. So Jacen closed his eyes and concentrated, hoping that enough time had passed for him to...

He opened them again, and found that he was in the _Jade Shadow_'s passenger cabin with the other Jedi there; while Corran was busy piloting the ship, Octa Ramis was on hand for Jacen to report to.

"I got the information," he said as he presented the 'pad. "Now we can identify the ChaseMasters and-"

In that moment, the _Shadow_ took a bad hit that temporarily had all power, even life support, shut off for just a quick two seconds.

When everyone recovered and returned to their feet, they froze as they felt something that shouldn't be felt right now.

Grand Lord Vol was free from his Force cage; and he was out for blood.

. . .

When the HWK dropped out into the Mandalore system, Tahiri had to veer the ship off to port to avoid colliding with a TIE fighter before just as quickly having to snap to starboard to avoid fire from a Bes'uliik.

"I think we just crashed one helluva party," Tahiri remarked as she again dodged some fire from another Bes'uliik.

"I think Jagged Fel might be here," Partner reported after looking at one of the sensors.

"How so?" Tahiri asked before she began a dogfight with a Bes'uliik.

"The Star Destroyer _Gilad Pellaeon_ is here," Partner replied as the HWK buckled from the opposing fire. "That would be his capital ship, and it's dead ahead."

"Mind helping me with this one, Partner?" Tahiri asked as she grit her teeth; her slaloms in space weren't helping her dodge the Bes'uliik's fire.

"Not at all," Partner replied as he took control of weapons.

. . .

"Don't worry about me, Jaina!" Mirta called on their fleet frequency. "Just get to Jag! Maybe you can find out what's wrong with him!"

"I hope you're right, Mirta," Jaina replied; even after taking out the Bes'uliik that prevented her from getting to the _Gilad Pellaeon_, Mirta was still in the dogfight with her husband that had begun minutes before. "Maybe I can even help save your husband, too."

"All the more reason for you to... get there!" Mirta said as her ship took another hit from Ghes.

With that, Jaina turned away from the larger battle and zoomed back toward the _Pellaeon_. She had no trouble shooting down the shield generator that prevented enemy ships and projectiles from entering the Star Destroyer's hangar bay. But she had to really pour on some speed if she wanted to get past the emergency physical barrier that was now sliding in to close off the hangar from the vacuum of space.

Jaina had two meters to spare for the _Slave I_ before she was in and the barrier closed behind her; the resultant gust of wind from the closing blew the Firespray a little bit off course, but Jaina easily corrected for it so that she landed safely along the deck.

However, from the various egresses throughout the bay, squads of stormtroopers began trotting in with their blasters; in moments, they had the _Slave_ I surrounded with their blaster rifles pointed at it.

One of the stormtroopers pressed a button on the side of his helmet so that his voice was amplified throughout the bay when he said, "Step out of the ship nice and slowly. Fire on us, and any one of my people here will lob remote detonators at the Firespray. You have thirty seconds."

This trooper wasn't bluffing, Jaina sensed; and with the number of soldiers here, they probably had enough detonators to blow open the _Slave I_, especially considering the recent beatings she took.

But Jaina could also sense that although none of these troopers knew who exactly had been piloting the _Slave I_ since Boba Fett's death, they had intended to simply kill the pilot anyway; they just preferred to shoot their prey instead of risk being near a large explosion when they ended their quarry's life.

Well, at least they didn't know who they were going up against.

Within the half-minute that Jaina was afforded, she exited the _Slave I_ with her hands up.

But before any of the stormtroopers could react at the sight of her, she quickly crouched down to unleash a powerful Force-wave that knocked all the troopers to the deck.

As the stormtroopers began recovering and bringing themselves back to their feet, Jaina moved among them at a speed that was between a highly-trained athlete and full-on Force-speed; she knocked them down in quick succession with Force-enhanced blows that managed to render them unconscious even against the protection of their armor and helmets.

Once they were all unconscious, Jaina broadened her Force-senses to where Jag and his Sith captors were. When she got them on her proverbial radar, she headed to the Star Destroyer's bridge.

. . .

_Yes!_ Daala exclaimed through the Force. _Your death shall herald the end of your Consortium, Your Majesty! And when that is gone, the Jedi will be next! I greatly look forward to killing your husband, Miss Quee!_

The Galactic Alliance Chief of State continued to press on the minds of both Allana and Danni, feeling their wills wither into nothingness. The pain that blanketed their death throes was something that actually seemed to feed Daala through the Force, as if she were having a delectable meal at a five-star restaurant back in the upper echelons of Coruscant.

And there was nothing that either of her victims could do; in spite of the Battle Dragons that now flanked the Star Destroyers in this empty system, the Queen Mother's death was imminent.

It wouldn't be long now, Daala sensed. Within a few more moments, both Allana and Danni would travel to the Netherworld of the Force, their deaths serving as the vanguard for the fall of the Jedi Order. And when that happened, Daala would go on to...

Something in the Force suddenly seemed to stop that train of thought. For the first time in the brief time that Daala had received the Force, she was encountering... resistance. And not the kind that Vol and Bwua'tu had offered, but... genuine resistance that was preventing her from accomplishing her goals.

But how could this be? Daala wondered. She was just on the verge of killing both of these women through the Force! They had been so weak, she felt!

_How... are you... resisting me?_ Daala asked frantically.

_You may be powerful, Daala_, Danni's voice said.

_But Danni and I are together,_ Allana's voice added. _You are only one_.

_And we can resist you,_ the both of them replied simultaneously.

Daala then felt pressure applying to her own mind.

She grit her teeth before she replied with, _For now. But you will not succeed_.

Daala then renewed her efforts on Allana and Danni's minds, yet she encountered even more resistance.

However, she did start to feel it already fading. And from her peripheral awareness of the physical battle going on outside, it seemed like Bwua'tu was commanding things well enough as his Star Destroyers were fending off the Battle Dragons; it was clear that Daala wasn't needed for that part as her attack on Danni and Allana's minds increased in strength.

. . .

Mirta's energy shields were all but gone, and in various places, her Bes'uliik was pockmarked with large indentations and even holes.

However, the same could be said for her treacherous husband's starfighter as their dogfight seemed to be reaching its climax.

They matched each other in their erratic dance in space, jinking and juking every which way as they lanced each other with laser strikes; while they missed more often than not, the strikes they did give each other every time they made a pass at the other made it all the more critical.

Gritting her teeth, and holding herself from breaking down into tears, Mirta called on the frequency, "Ghes, I'm giving you one last chance! Stop this right now and maybe you can live to explain yourself!"

"I'm sorry, Mirta," Ghes replied as he turned around from his most recent pass and soared in for his wife. His tone was listless, as if he were bored, as he continued to say, "But you're on the wrong side here."

"Ghes, I don't know what's gotten into you, but if you don't stop, I'll have to end you!" Mirta cried.

"Try it," came Ghes's noncommittal-sounding reply. He came into range to begin firing on his wife again.

She executed a tight veer to starboard even as she unleashed a volley of lasers herself.

All of the marks hit upon Ghes's weakened hull, resulting in its explosive destruction.

Mirta had only a moment to let that sink in before she turned away to find another enemy to dogfight.

There would be a time for mourning—more specifically, for breaking down into tearful sobs—when this was all over.

Mirta hoped that at the very least, when she fought Belok Rhal, she would know it was him before he died.

. . .

The stormtroopers that came across Jaina's way to the _Gilad Pellaeon_'s bridge were easily taken down non-lethally with a few Force-swipes here and there, as well as the occasional knockout that was preceded by a burst of Force-speed.

However, after taking another junction in this particular corridor, which put her dozens of meters away from the bridge, she stopped to find that there might be more needed here than non-lethal measures.

Halfway down the corridor, a lucid-looking Jag was surrounded by a circle of stormtroopers who all had their blasters pointed at him. Outside the circle and facing Jaina were two people, both dressed in the uniforms of Imperial officers; one was a blonde woman who looked vaguely like Tahiri and the other was a dark-haired man of similar complexion to his female counterpart.

"If you wanna get him and get him alive, Jedi," the woman said, "you'll have to kill us first."

"But if you make it past us while both or either one of us still lives," the man continued, "your husband, or rather ex-husband, gets barbecued so badly by all his troopers' blaster bolts, he won't even taste good enough for a Barabel to eat."

Jaina tilted her head. "Challenge accepted."

Both the man and woman activated their crimson-bladed lightsabers right before Jaina activated her purple one. She then leaped toward them just as they leaped toward her, and when they met halfway, Jaina made sure that she didn't make it past either of them for Jag's sake.

. . .

"Great, how are we gonna get aboard that Destroyer now?" Partner asked.

Even as they were still in the midst of the fighting that pervaded the immediate space surrounding Mandalore, both Partner and Tahiri saw that the _Gilad Pellaeon_'s hangar bay had been closed off by an emergency physical barrier that made it impossible to enter or exit the Star Destroyer until its energy shield generator could be repaired.

After Tahiri dodged a projectile from a TIE bomber, she asked, "Well, how much will it take to destroy that barrier?"

"Well, much more than this ship can dish out, that's for sure," Partner replied as he kept part of his concentration on firing at enemy targets.

"Then I guess that means we gotta get-" She was cut off as she had to veer to starboard to get out of the way of an incoming enemy Bes'uliik. "-everyone on our side to fire on the barrier."

"Maybe not on the barrier itself," Partner said. "But maybe just the hinges."

"Like prying open a panel," Tahiri reasoned.

"But with much more difficulty," Partner said as he missed a fleeing TIE fighter.

"Contact the frequency Gev's using," Tahiri said. "Tell her what we need to do to get into that Destroyer."

. . .

Although he was old and appeared to be frail, the Lost Tribe of the Sith's Grand Lord Darish Vol was anything but the latter; instead, he was a hurricane of Force-power who ran rampant within the _Jade Shadow_'s passenger cabin. And even without his lightsaber, which the Jedi were smart to destroy after they had captured him, Vol repelled all of the Jedi present with his powerful Force-shoves that sent every single one of them careening among the bulkheads, ceiling, and deck.

No matter how hard any of the Jedi tried, whether it was Corran, Octa, or any of the other Knights, including Jacen, not a single one of them could get close enough to the Grand Lord to strike him down with any of their lightsabers. And so far, Vol didn't seem to be tiring even as he beat down the enemies around him with relative ease.

In the midst of this one-sided battle against Vol, Jacen and Corran collapsed next to each other, propped up against a bulkhead. The Master said, "He has to get tired soon! There's no way he can keep this up!"

By this point, Jacen was wheezing; combined with the beatings that Vol just gave him with the ones that Workan had doled out before his death, the Knight was in worse shape than any of his fellow Jedi.

"Maybe... he can't," Jacen said between gasps. "But... when he does... we might all... be dead."

"We can't just give up, Jacen!" Corran said. "I know you're hurt pretty bad, but we have to-"

"Let me handle this, Master Horn," Jacen said. "When I give... the signal... send... a confusing thought... into his head."

"Wait, what signal?" Corran asked.

Jacen looked right at him and held up his own lightsaber. "This... will be... a Sith... blade." He then stood up very carefully; he thought that maybe one of his ribs was broken.

Both Lowbacca and Seff Hellin were flung off to Jacen's right for their trouble in attacking Vol. But after that, the Grand Lord looked to Jacen, who was approaching him with calm and dignity, in spite of the limp that resulted from his left ankle being sprained.

And Jacen had just deactivated his lightsaber.

"Jacen, what are you doing?!" Corran called out as he began to stand up.

Jacen held up a hand without looking back at Corran; and seeing that Octa was unconscious off to his left, no one else was willing to speak out against Jacen.

Vol regarded this with a smirk and an arrogant guffaw. "What do you hope to do to me, Jedi, without even the help of your lightsaber?"

"Absolutely... nothing," Jacen said. "In fact... Grand Lord Vol... I give... my life... to you." He then tossed the Keshiri his own lightsaber.

Vol caught it easily and activated it; he sneered at the green blade and looked back up at Jacen.

"Why should I kill you with a Jedi weapon?" Vol asked contemptuously.

"It's not... a Jedi weapon," Jacen replied evenly. "It's... a Sith blade."

Vol looked confusedly for a moment before looking back at what was now a red blade.

That was all the distraction that Jacen needed.

With a burst of Force-speed, even in spite of his sprained ankle and wheezing, he moved in to grab at the hand that Vol was using to hold the weapon and angled it to chop his arm off at the shoulder.

However, Vol managed to dodge out of Jacen's charge, twirled around, and decapitated the Knight.

"Ha!" he laughed. "Nice try, you..."

When Vol looked, Jacen was still standing in front of him, and he even had his green blade in hand.

Vol only had a moment to see that the lightsaber he had just been wielding wasn't even in his own hand anymore; and when he looked back up, he didn't even have time to duck beneath the decapitating swing that Jacen executed.

All of the Jedi in the passenger cabin took a moment for themselves to look over at the beheaded corpse of the Sith Grand Lord before looking back up at Jacen in stunned amazement.

But Jacen simply looked over at Corran and said, "Thanks... Master Horn... you may not... have trained... with the Fallanassi... like my uncle... but you're still... damn good... at casting... confusing images... in the minds... of others."

Corran nodded as he helped himself back to his feet. "Thank you, Jacen; and also thank you for getting Vol to lower his guard so that I could project that image in his mind."

Jacen nodded. He then turned and headed for the cockpit; he was aided by Zekk and Jysella, who had his arms over their shoulders.

Once they reached the cockpit, Jacen was set down in the copilot seat, brought out his datapad, and began relaying the information from it to the Jedi StealthX fleet frequency.

"These are... the ships... that must be... destroyed, people," Jacen announced. "Not one of them... should be left... to retreat... into hyperspace... if our Grand Master... is to recover his mind... all of the High Lords... commanding these ChaseMasters... must die."

From there, the remaining Jedi transmitted the information about which ChaseMasters needed to be destroyed to the Chiss and Sekotan ships.

Within minutes, concentrated fleetwide attacks began on all of the indicated ChaseMasters, with all of their hyperdrives in particular being targeted for destruction.

. . .

Toward the end of the Battle of Mandalore, Mirta Gev and her Mandalorian force was whittled down to about a quarter of their initial strength while the Imperial forces were reduced to only a little over half of their own initial strength.

But in spite of those long odds, Gev's forces managed to do as their leader commanded and bombarded the hinges surrounding the emergency physical barrier that protected the _Gilad Pellaeon_'s hangar bay from the vacuum of space.

The barrier was blasted away from the decompression toward the system's sun, and only the _Slave I_ followed in its wake.

Upon seeing her grandfather's legendary ship fly off into space, Mirta broke off from engaging with another enemy fighter and zoomed toward the _Slave I_.

She hoped to overtake the ship, match its speed and trajectory, and then nudge it away so that it didn't ultimately end up burning away into atoms by the heat of Mandalore's star.

However, that plan soon saw a complication when her rear was hit by a laser bolt fired by a Bes'uliik pursuing her.

Mirta's sensors showed that it matched the profile of the fighter that Belok Rhal piloted.

She opened up the frequency to him. "Rhal, is that you firing on me?" Mirta asked.

"You bet it is," he growled. "And before I kill you, I'm gonna make sure you lose the only connection to your grandfather that you have left; consider it payback for not being a good little puppet like you were supposed to be." He then fired off a volley of rapid shots, most of which Mirta managed to dodge.

"Pretty petty for a merc, Rhal," Mirta shot back as her ship buckled from the shots that made it past her maneuvers.

"I like to mix business with pleasure, bitch," Rhal replied, "just like I did when I killed your grandfather." He cut off the transmission and continued to try to blow Mirta away into oblivion.

But because of that last bit of information that Rhal provided, Mirta completely forgot about the _Slave I_ tumbling toward Mandalore's sun as she turned around and fired at her grandfather's killer.

. . .

After the physical barrier protecting the _Gilad Pellaeon_'s hangar bay was blasted away, Tahiri piloted the HWK toward the deck, rotated it so that its landing ramp was facing an entrance into the rest of the Star Destroyer, and engaged the ship's magnetic clamps that sealed her there in spite of the decompression going on.

"Well, now we're in, but how are we supposed to get into the rest of the ship without getting blown out into space?" Partner asked.

"Your jetpack still got a lotta fuel?" Tahiri asked.

"Even if it had a full can, it won't-"

"How much fuel does it have left?"

Partner sighed before checking his jetpack by pulling out a wire from the right side; along that wire was an indicator that he read.

He allowed the wire to retract of its own volition into the jetpack before answering, "It's a little over a quarter from being full."

"Then with some Force-power from me," Tahiri said, "we can make it to the door that I parked us near."

Moments later, after the landing ramp was out, Partner flew out on his jetpack as he carried Tahiri beneath him; and with a great Force-push from her at their starting point, they rocketed against the decompression toward the door that would bring them into the rest of the Star Destroyer.

Once they made it, they grabbed at the emergency railings at either side of the door; however, when Tahiri pressed the button that would open the door, she was answered with an **ACCESS DENIED**.

"Must be because of the decompression! Emergency procedure!" Partner shouted.

"No problem!" Tahiri shouted back as she reached one hand for her lightsaber.

Half a minute later, Tahiri had finished cutting the door open, and as she allowed it to fly off into space, she used the Force to swing herself and Partner into the corridor leading into the rest of the Star Destroyer.

They were both in a split second before an emergency energy shield sealed them from the vacuum of space.

"Now let's end this," Tahiri said before she and Partner hurried for the bridge.

. . .

The two Sith that Jaina dueled off against were greatly skilled, she found, as they managed to get her further and further away from Jag to the point that she was nearing the bulkhead that terminated this junction of the corridor.

She could have executed any number of maneuvers that could have gone past either of them; but she knew that they weren't bluffing when they told her that if she did so without killing them both, Jag would be shot before she could ever reach him.

The problem was, Jaina discovered, that even though she was the Sword of the Jedi, she was still having trouble fighting two Sith who probably weren't even all that special in their own hierarchy. Killing them was, thus, surprisingly tricky, especially since she found herself on the defensive against their vicious attacks.

Once they had her back against the wall, Jaina feared, she would either die or be forced to make it past them, which would cost Jag his life. And she couldn't find the opportunity to drive either of them back with a Force-shove, as neither Sith allowed her any breathing room for that kind of move.

After several minutes of dueling against the Sith, Jaina could tell without even having to look behind her that she was only meters away from that bulkhead.

"Better step up your game, Jedi!" the man said.

"'Cause you're almost outta room!" the woman concluded.

_Come on!_ Jaina chided herself. _You can do this, you can beat them, Jaina!_

Then she felt her back hit the bulkhead.

_No!_ she screamed in her mind.

Both Sith reared back, as if for a killing stroke.

But before Jaina could even defend herself...

The man and woman both turned to their left to block off blaster bolts fired by Partner; and rushing in toward them, covered by the Mandalorian's fire, was Tahiri wielding a crimson-bladed lightsaber.

Partner's blasterfire ceased as Tahiri engaged the man with the clash of their blades, since he was the one facing her. That left Jaina to engage the woman, and together, both Jedi and former Jedi began driving the Sith duo back toward the stormtrooper circle surrounding Jag.

"Say, Jaina, wanna tell me... what's going on... with the troopers and Jag?" Tahiri asked between defense and attack.

"Can't... get past... the Sith... or Jag... gets shot," Jaina explained.

"Got it," Tahiri replied before she renewed her attack on her own opponent.

Once they were a few meters from the circle, Tahiri defeated her opponent first by ducking beneath a decapitating swing of his so that she literally cut out his legs from under him. He collapsed to the deck screaming in pain for only two seconds before she put him out of his misery by skewering him with her Sith blade.

With that out of the way, Tahiri helped Jaina take on the female Sith, who managed to find a way to stand her ground against her opponents when her back was only a meter from the circle.

But just as Jaina managed to parry away one of the Sith's strikes, leaving Tahiri a chance to strike the woman down, the latter jumped over both of them.

She landed in a crouch and swiftly turned around to face them with a malicious grin.

"No!" Jaina screamed as she turned back to the stormtrooper circle; at the same time, all of their blasters went off simultaneously.

But when they were done firing, all of the troopers dropped dead to the deck from the bolts that they incidentally fired on one another.

As for Jag...

He was left shaking his head in confusion as he lay on the deck with Tahiri on top of him... and her back was pockmarked with burning blaster holes.

She looked up at him, her teeth gritted in pain.

"You're welcome," she said.

She then rolled over off of Jag and died.

As Jaina gasped in shock at the death of her friend, the female Sith, who used a Force-wave to slam Partner back against the bulkhead behind him, thought that that distraction would be the perfect opportunity to strike her down.

She was wrong.

Jaina swiftly moved out of the way of the strike that was coming in behind her and pivoted so that she ended up decapitating the woman instead.

Only after that did Jaina collapse to her knees and cry for her lost friend.

. . .

As Mirta and Rhal's dogfight brought them closer to Mandalore's sun, the gravitational effects of the star began to pull on their ships even as the heat increased to an intensity that not even their personal armor could protect them from.

The sweat that poured from Mirta's body was nearly accompanied by tears as she saw the _Slave I_ finally burn away into nothingness by its proximity to the sun.

"That's right, Gev!" Rhal called frantically over the frequency. "Join your grandfather's ship into oblivion! Join your grandfather! You've already lost your husband! What more can you possibly live for anyway?!"

During that brief monologue, Mirta managed to aim her reticle right over the protective covering for Rhal's subspace engines.

Judging by the amount of indentation on the covering even by the naked eye, it looked like it was ready to expose those engines.

"The simple things, Rhal," Mirta answered. She then fired on the protective covering, exposing the engines as predicted.

"Like seeing you die with my grandfather's ship," she said. She fired again.

Rhal was unable to maneuver in time before the lasers hit his engines.

"And hearing you scream when you go!" Mirta concluded.

Several more shots took out the protection covering his thrusters, and one more shot took out those, too; thus, Rhal had run out of options to save himself from burning away into his composite atoms.

With that, Mirta turned away and rocketed away from Mandalore's sun while Rhal's Bes'uliik fell toward the star.

She surprisingly got little in the way of satisfaction from hearing him scream in agony; and not much more was added there when she was able to turn and watch as his Bes'uliik burned away just like the _Slave I_.

. . .

The destruction of the ChaseMasters' hyperdrives only made them and what few starfighters they had left fight even harder, like wounded animals trapped in a corner against a ferocious predator that was on the verge of tearing them apart for sustenance. The projectiles that all of the Sith ships, fighters and capitals alike, went out in flurried frenzies that did all they could to wipe out the Jedi ships and their Chiss and Sekotan allies; even with High Lord Workan and Grand Lord Vol gone, the Lost Tribe didn't lose any discipline, no doubt because they still had their remaining High Lords in the fray. Defensive formations from the Sith, especially around their ChaseMasters, were tight; but at this point, with their numbers so whittled down, it appeared that their defeat was inevitable.

Soon, as the last of the Sith fighters was blown to pieces, and the ChaseMasters had all but lost their weapons, the Lost Tribe's capital ships appeared to be uniformly ordered to drive themselves toward Zonama Sekot.

According to the sensors provided by all of the remaining Jedi ships and their allies, it appeared that the ChaseMasters' engine cores were set to overload.

"Attention all ships!" Admiral Peecar transmitted over the fleet frequency. "If all those ChaseMasters blow up within Zonama's atmosphere, it will severely irradiate the entire planet for years to come! Well over three-quarters of the population would die!"

"Then let's prevent that from happening, everybody!" Kyp Durron announced.

With that, all of the remaining StealthXs, the _Millennium Falcon_, the _Jade Shadow_, and what was left of the Chiss and Sekotan ships poured practically everything they had left in terms of firepower against the ChaseMasters.

The Sith's capital ships' energy shields were completely wiped away, leaving their hulls utterly defenseless as they were shredded into so much flotsam and debris. Sith bodies were blown out into the vacuum of space, where they ended up, depending on their positions, either floating out toward the great infinity or burning up in Zonama's atmosphere.

Shockingly, not a single escape pod or other kind of escape vessels were launched from the capitals; no doubt their occupants believed that at that point, they would already be dead, even if they were taken alive by their enemies.

In minutes, the last ChaseMaster was blown away into oblivion only mere kilometers above Zonama's atmosphere.

The Jedi and their allies had defeated the Lost Tribe of the Sith.

Once it was confirmed by Peecar over the fleet frequency that all of the Sith ships had been destroyed, cheering and celebration went out from all of the victorious ships.

For about two minutes, even Jacen was caught up in the raucous victory before something occurred to him.

Immediately, from the copilot seat, he contacted the _Millennium Falcon_.

"Mom, Dad, how's Uncle Luke?" Jacen asked.

"Why don't you ask him yourself, son?" Han's voice asked.

A moment later, Luke Skywalker's voice said, "Hey, Jacen; I'm back."

"Uncle Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"You mind repeating that over the Jedi fleet frequency?"

"Not at all." Two seconds later, he said, "To all the remaining Jedi... I'm cured of the Force-trap that the Sith brought upon me. I'm back."

The raucous celebration was renewed... but for only a few seconds.

Because shortly after Luke announced that he was, indeed, back, Jacen seized up.

_Jacen! Dad! You gotta help us!_ Allana cried out through the Force.

_Jacen, Daala has the Force somehow!_ Danni cried out next._ She's attacking Allana and me! She wants to kill all the Jedi! You gotta help-_

_Ah!_ came an arrogant, self-satisfied voice that was all too familiar. _So far away, yet right in my grasp! Now I can kill you, too, Solo!_

Jacen then stumbled out of the copilot seat as he felt his mind being assaulted by a great, powerful pressure.

The voices of the concerned Jedi around him faded away as Daala's voice continued to call out with, _Yes! Yes! I can feel the other Jedi around you, as well, Solo! Let's see just how far this connection does for me!_

Indeed, as if it were a virus, all the other Jedi aboard the _Jade Shadow_ stumbled and collapsed to their knees as their minds were also assaulted by the awesome power that Daala wielded through the Force.

And even as he felt his own mind being assaulted, as well as the minds of Danni, Allana, and the _Shadow_'s Jedi being attacked, Jacen could also sense that Daala was now able to attack the minds of all the other Jedi in the fleet.

Including Uncle Luke's newly-freed mind.

But as the attack persisted, and Jacen tried to find some way to resist the effort that Daala was applying to all of them, he eventually found one.

Daala's own presence was starting to feel... unstable. And that instability only increased the more she pressed on her attack.

_Resist, everyone! Resist!_ Jacen called out through the Force. _Our power seems to make Daala more powerful! But her power is unstable! It will cause her to lose control! I can feel it!_

At first, Jacen could feel the tortured gathering resist. And for a moment, it seemed to be working; the all-encompassing force that was Daala seemed to be waning.

But her power came back just as strongly, rebounding from the ebb as if nothing had ever happened.

_Calm, everyone!_ Luke's voice communed through the Force. _Calm! We must give ourselves over to the Force! Only then can we defeat Daala! Only then can we properly resist!_

But it didn't seem like any of the Jedi, not even Jacen, could listen, as the pain that Daala was bringing upon them was too great to counter.

_You can't hope to defeat me, Skywalker!_ Daala conveyed. _And I have complete control over this power, Solo! I have no instability! I gained this power through something that was thought to be impossible! You, by contrast, are grounded in only what can be possible with your powers! Your destruction is inevitable! I am-_

Daala's voice was cut off; again, her power felt like it was waning. But like before, she came back, her attack renewed and seeming stronger than before.

_I am your doom! I am your end! I will be the one to see that the-_

Once more, it seemed like Daala's presence was... stumbling through the Force.

_I will be the one to see that the fate of the Jedi will be extinction, that what Emperor Palpatine sought to accomplish, I will bring to fruition. You will all be-_

. . .

When Daala screamed, it was just as audible through the Force as it was in the physical plane.

Everyone on the bridge of the _Admiral Ackbar_ looked upon her with fear and apprehension as her being glowed red, as if she were highly radioactive. She stood stock still as her scream continued, unabated, going into a higher pitch; and her glow similarly grew brighter with its own intensity.

Her scream soon became so loud that it merged into the sound that her own glow actually made.

Moments later, the entire _Admiral Ackbar_ exploded, sending a shock wave that rattled all of the ships in this system from their positions. But when the wave passed, and all that remained of the _Ackbar_ was debris, a calm settled over the remaining Galactic Alliance and Hapan ships as their occupants all began wondering what just happened.

The only two people who knew what happened, Allana and Danni, looked over at each other in the _Dragon Queen_'s medbay from their strapped positions on their respective beds. They smiled in relief at each other, holding hands in support of what they had just gone through, before Allana looked over to the chief medical officer and said, "We're okay now. You may let us go."

When Allana and Danni returned to the Battle Dragon's bridge, Admiral Serash said, "Your Majesty, General Hague wishes to speak to you; he's the highest-ranking officer now that Admiral Bwua'tu is dead."

Allana looked to the viewport where Hague's image waited to be spoken to.

"General Hague," Allana said, "I take it you wish to cease hostilities with the Hapes Consortium on behalf of the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances?"

"You are correct, Your Majesty," Hague said with a nod. "This was all Chief Daala's idea; but now that she's dead, I hope that we can sue for peace."

"Shall we discuss this further aboard my Battle Dragon, General?" Allana asked.

"By all means, Your Majesty."

. . .

"Everyone," Luke said over the fleetwide frequency, "we won."

The cheer that erupted from all of the Jedi ships, even if their allies were confused as to what just happened after the Lost Tribe was defeated, was even greater than it was from the downfall of their Sith enemies.


	44. Chapter 43

Jaina cried for only two minutes over Tahiri as Jag hugged and consoled her. By the end of those two minutes, however, the _Gilad Pellaeon_ started to shake.

"We're under attack!" Jag practically shouted. "Jaina, what's going on?"

She sniffled before she answered. "You... you were under... Sith control, Jag. You'd... allied yourself... with Belok Rhal... against Mirta."

"We gotta get to the bridge!" Jag said.

"You go," she said. "Let me be."

Jag looked at his wife with concern. "I'm so sorry, Jaina." He then stood up and hurried to the bridge, allowing Jaina to continue to weep for Tahiri.

Once Jag reached the bridge, he called out to one of the comm officers, "Patch me through to Mirta Gev!"

"Sir?" that officer asked. His look of confusion was also shared by Admiral Vitor Reige, who stood close to the command chair.

"You heard me!"

A moment later, the officer said, "Channel open, sir."

"Mirta Gev, this is Jagged Fel!" he said. "Call off your forces and I'll call off mine!"

"Came to your senses, huh, Fel?" Mirta's voice replied. Her voice sounded bitter, as if she lost something, or someone, particularly important today; maybe both, Jag thought.

"I was under Sith influence," Jag explained. "Jaina and a friend of ours, Tahiri, saved me."

"How do I know you're still not under Sith influence?" Mirta asked.

Jag rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll call off my forces first." He looked to Reige. "Admiral, call for a ceasefire immediately."

Reige hesitated, but ultimately nodded and relayed Jag's order.

When the remaining TIE ships, Rhal-aligned Bes'uliiks, and Star Destroyers broke off their engagements, it was only a few seconds before all of Mirta's forces fell silent in their fire.

Mirta's voice soon returned to the frequency. "We'll settle the terms of peace on one of the Destroyers that still has a functioning hangar bay, Fel."

"Agreed. Will the _Trebalask_ suffice?" Jag asked.

"It'll do," Mirta answered evenly. She then ended the communication.

Jag looked at Reige and said, "I'll be taking an escape pod to the _Trebalask_."

"Wait, sir," Reige said. "What's this that you were under Sith influence?"

"Remember those two communications officers you saw leave here with me before the hangar bay got closed off?" Jag asked. "You know, before the barrier was destroyed?"

"Yeah?" Reige asked.

"They had me under some powerful mind-control, but don't worry, Jaina and Tahiri took care of that, as I said," Jag clarified.

"We had Sith infiltrators?" Reige asked in shock.

"I'll explain it at all to you after I'm done with Mirta," he said. "You have the bridge, Admiral." Jag then left Reige wondering who else aboard his bridge, or in his Empire, was a Sith infiltrator.

"I'm not a Sith, sir," the comm officer who obeyed Jag said earnestly.

Reige looked at him with annoyance. "Thank you, that's very helpful," he said facetiously.

. . .

**One Week Later**

In the Solos' reclaimed apartment on Coruscant, Han and Leia watched as Perre Needmo reported on probably the best news to come out since Jacen's apparent return from the dead months before.

"In the aftermath of Chief of State Daala's death," Needmo said, "her Chief of Staff Wynn Dorvan has officially been sworn in as her replacement for what would have remained of her term in office. As of this morning, the peace treaty between Chief Dorvan and Hapan Queen Mother Allana Djo has been finalized, with Chief Dorvan denouncing Chief Daala's actions as morally unjustifiable and even illegal.

"One of the biggest terms in the treaty, and probably the most controversial among the public, was for allowing the Jedi Order to return to the space occupied by the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, which, of course, includes Coruscant. Construction of a new Jedi Temple has already begun as the members of the Jedi Order have relocated from the Hapes Consortium back to the worlds of Coruscant and Ossus.

"In similar news, the peace treaty between the Imperial Remnant and the nation of Mandalore has also been finalized, with Head of State Jagged Fel and Mandalore Mirta Gev agreeing to cease hostilities. Head of State Fel has even offered to give reparations to the nation of Mandalore, even though many Imperial citizens, especially those among the Moff Council, believe this to be an unnecessary gesture considering the damage that the Mandalorians had wrought upon the Remnant's territories.

"But speaking of the Moff Council, the free speech policy that Head of State Fel enacted early in his administration has allowed the Imperial public to speak out against and criticize not only him but the rest of the Moff Council. The subject of that criticism? For having been fooled by Belok Rhal and a rumored clandestine group of Sith into dragging the Imperial Remnant into what has been called a pointless war in the first place.

"Supporting this criticism is the fact that the Moff Council unanimously agreed to allow Head of State Fel to so quickly invite Mr. Rhal and his forces in a rebellion against Mirta Gev and her forces. As well, Mandalore Gev's own statement that she, too, had been manipulated by Rhal into believing that it was the Imperial Remnant, not him, who killed her grandfather, Boba Fett, gives obvious credence to all of this criticism. As for the remaining Mandalorians who followed Mr. Rhal, Mandalore Gev has claimed that they have all been outcast from mainstream Mandalorian society and are told to never return to Mandalore or any of its sectors; failure to abide by this exile will result in death warrants being issued for any and all violators.

"Following his peace settlement with Mandalore Gev, Jagged Fel has announced that he will begin a series of amendments to the Imperial charter that will allow it to become even more democratic. How so? It will be to the point that once a Head of State has come to the end of his or her term and a new one is elected, so will a new group of Moffs, allowing the previous ones to retire.

"As for the rumors of Sith, all three of the major galactic powers, the Galactic Alliance, the Imperial Remnant, and the Hapes Consortium, have pooled several of their own capital ships to investigate a planet in Wild Space known as Kesh. However, after a thorough search of the planet, there are no signs of sentient life present, though there are traces of previous occupation that all three powers have refused to disclose to the public. In spite of the absence of any Sith on Kesh, all three search parties have said that this will not stop them from looking into any other evidence of this organization elsewhere in the galaxy."

It was then that Leia turned the viewscreen off.

"It's almost time," she said to Han.

He nodded as he and his wife stood up from their couch and headed over to the dining room.

"Food almost ready, Threepio?" Han asked.

"As you can see, Master Solo," the protocol droid said as he spread his arms at the table before him, "the food is most certainly ready."

Indeed, an array of various, delectable foods ready to be served to several people was hot and ready for consumption.

A knock on the door to the apartment unit followed; Han went to answer it.

Upon opening the door, he hugged his daughter Jaina and said, "Hey, how ya doin' kid?"

Jaina's smile was bittersweet when she pulled out of the embrace. "Holdin' up."

Han nodded. "Good to hear." Obviously, Tahiri's death was still on her mind, but right now, he didn't want to see his daughter break down. He shook Jag's hand and said, "Here's hoping that your reforms will make the Empire a little more tolerable."

"I hope so, too, sir," Jag replied promptly.

Once they were inside, Jacen, Danni, and Allana, who wore a blonde wig for a disguise, all embraced Han just as Jaina and Jag both hugged Leia.

"Glad you could pull yourself outta your duties for a while, Your Majesty," Han said as he gave Allana a playful punch on the shoulder.

"I'm glad, too, Grandpa," Allana said.

Once Jacen, Danni, and Allana were past, Luke was the last to enter. The smile that Han's brother-in-law gave was warm and genuine, but it didn't cover the worry that was in his eyes for the only person in the family who couldn't show up.

Ben.

Han nodded and reflected Luke's smile. "Nice of you to show up, kid."

"Thanks, Han," he replied. "So shall we start?"

"Hey, Leia, can we start eating?" Han called back.

"As soon as you boys join!" Leia replied.

"Let's not keep 'em waiting then," Han said.

He let Luke join him before he whispered in his ear, "We'll find him, Luke. I promise you that."

"I know we will," Luke whispered back.

Without further ado, the two men took their seats at the table and the whole family started eating.


	45. Chapter 44

**Ten Months Later**

Diedridus IV was a world in the Unknown Regions that was home to many runaways, namely teenage ones, that was surprisingly well-kept, free of pollution, and fit several definitions of the word "paradise" throughout the galaxy. And among the varying species of the Unknown Regions, many of whom had never been seen by those who inhabited the known galaxy, Ben and Vestara were able to blend in and live a peaceful and frugal lifestyle.

They lived along the shore of a beach, as many of the planet's inhabitants did, in a rustic hut that, while lacking in modern amenities, still served as a functional home for the young couple... and their baby boy.

As part of his function in the economy that the planet had, Ben's job was to work for eight hours a day down in a mineshaft; there, he helped dig up lodes of precious ores that the planet exported to interested parties that had nothing to do with the Chiss Ascendancy. He, thankfully, had a protective gas mask and suit that prevented him from getting radiation poisoning, the same that his coworkers all had on, as well

In return, Ben, naturally, received payments in food, water, and milk for his son. Ves, for her part, took on the role of maternal caregiver to her child since Ben was able to provide enough for the both of them. So, overall, Ben had been treated very well since he and Ves came here nearly a year before.

After a long day at work, Ben returned to the hut with a bag of groceries; while tonight was leftover night, it never hurt to prepare for tomorrow, he idly thought.

But upon returning, he dropped the bag when he saw Vestara sitting at the table, with Luke and Jacen standing at either side of her. While her expression was downcast and evasive, theirs was cold yet collected, and aimed directly at Ben.

"Hello, Ben," Luke said. "It's good to see you again."

"How did you find us?" Ben asked in shock.

"It wasn't easy," Jacen said. "I agreed to help your father look up and down the Unknown Regions for you. Considering the fact that you'd closed yourself off from the Force, we had to look long and hard."

A long, silent moment passed as Ben allowed all of this to sink into his head. Then he said, "So now you found me. What now?"

"Well, first, Ben," Luke said, "Jacen and I wanted to ask a few questions. Then we intend to take you back to Coruscant."

"Coruscant? So the Jedi Order's been accepted back into the Galactic Alliance?" Ben asked casually, as if he was already recovering from the shock of seeing his father and cousin here.

"It has," Jacen confirmed.

"Good to hear," Ben replied noncommittally. "But I'm not going back with you."

"You're still not an adult yet, Ben," Luke pointed out. "But even if you wanted to stay here, Vestara has a lot to answer for."

Ves gave Ben a silent, pleading look; this prompted him to look back at his family members and say, "Dad, Jacen, please. Don't do this. Ves and I have a perfectly good life here."

"We can see that," Jacen said. "But while starting a family is an admirable goal, you can't just abandon everyone who ever cared about you and-"

"Abandoned?" Ben asked indignantly. "You're all adults; you don't need me."

"But this is different, Ben," Luke said. "You had responsibilities to the Jedi Order. You left us when we needed you most."

"I was going to be a father!" Ben said. "I didn't want Ves to get hurt! She was right to take us away from the war between the Jedi and the Sith! All it ever brings is violence and heartache!"

"I thought we were over this, Ben," Jacen said.

"I'm not angry at you for my mom or Caedus anymore, Jacen," Ben countered. "That was settled; but Ves let me see that we needed to get away from all of you if we were to ever truly live."

"Ves has been using you, Ben," Luke said.

"That's what he told you, Dad," Ben nearly shouted. "She loves me as much as I love her. Can't you see that? Do you see any violence and strife going on outside?"

"She manipulated you, Ben!" Jacen pointed out.

"At first I did," Ves said.

Everyone else in the room looked at her now.

"That was true," Ves continued. "Let me emphasize was. But even then, I did care about Ben; for all of his pain, I saw how good of a person he was. He was unlike anyone else in the Lost Tribe, even among our most gracious and kindest members. Ben helped me come to see how dark and corrupt the Lost Tribe truly was even when I was trying to get him to see the beauty of the dark side."

"So when exactly did you change your mind?" Jacen was the one to ask.

"When Grand Lord Vol told me that if worse came to worse, Ben would die," Ves said. "And I didn't want to raise my child without a father." She looked specifically up at Jacen. "That's why I turned on them back on that ChaseMaster; and it wasn't just to save Ben, either, but it was to save you, too."

"Why me? For all you knew, Ben still hated me."

"Maybe; but you still cared about him nonetheless. Oh, yes, my parents cared about me; my father, a Sith Saber, did love me, but only as much as his Sith teachings would allow. You, Jacen, loved Ben with all your heart even when he gave you nothing but hate in return."

"Well, thank you," Jacen said politely. "But that doesn't excuse everything you did before then."

"I've forgiven her, Jacen!" Ben shouted.

It was that that prompted an infant's crying in the next room.

"Can I please tend to my child?" Ves asked earnestly.

Jacen looked at Luke, who nodded back.

"Go ahead," Jacen said.

Ves stood up and walked over to the next room.

As the baby's crying turned into soft coos that became barely audible here, more silence passed for several seconds before Luke asked, "What's his name?"

"What?" Ben asked.

"What's your child's name, Ben?" Luke elaborated.

Ben hesitated. But he answered with, "Gavar. He's named after Vestara's father."

"I see." Luke's tone gave no indication as to how he felt about that.

Another silent, awkward moment passed before Ben asked, "You're gonna have her imprisoned, aren't you? You're gonna separate us; you're gonna take her from our child."

Luke and Jacen spared each other a look before returning their gaze back to Ben.

"She'll be safe in the Jedi Temple, Ben," Jacen said.

"Yeah, in some cold cell in some subbasement," Ben countered with a sneer.

"It won't be like that," Jacen said. "She'll be as comfortable as we can make her."

"But she'll still be in prison," Ben countered.

"That's how it'll have to be," Jacen said.

"Ben, this isn't just about you," Luke said. "As a Sith, Vestara was complicit in so many of her people's crimes. Justice has to be paid."

"Justice, huh?" Ben retorted. "Last I checked, the Jedi Order doesn't operate in the Unknown Regions. And Diedridus IV has no extradition treaty with the Galactic Alliance. If you wanna get legal here, you have no jurisdiction here."

"Actually, we've cleared it with this planet's authorities," Luke said. "Once we explained your situation with Vestara, they gave us full permission to take the both of you, as well as your baby, of course, off this planet and back into our jurisdiction."

Ben was taken aback for a moment before he stammered, "Y-you're lying."

"I'm not," Luke said. "And you know I'm not, Ben."

Indeed, Ben could sense no hint of deceit or evasiveness that could disguise deception from his father's Force-presence.

Ben sighed in defeat; and for the first time since he came here with Ves, tears of sorrow, rather than tears of joy for when his child was born, flowed from his eyes.

"So that's how it's gonna be, huh?" Ben asked.

Both Luke and Jacen nodded gravely.

Ben took a deep breath before letting it out in an attempt to allow himself to relax. "Then... at the very least... let me bring her out."

"Go on, Ben," Luke allowed.

Ben then walked to his son's bedroom; but upon opening it...

Both Ves and baby Gavar were gone.

. . .

According to the reports from Diedridus IV's authorities, Ves had managed to escape using a tunnel that she had been digging beneath her baby's room that led to one of the planet's nearby spaceports.

It was guesswork, but if she had managed to get that far, there was little to no doubt that she could have stowed away aboard any of the transport ships with Gavar and escaped. At this point, she could be practically anywhere in the Unknown Regions.

And Ben couldn't even sense her, or their baby, even if he tried.

Sitting at the foot of his bed as the _Jade Shadow_ brought him back to Coruscant, Ben wondered how he could go on without Vestara or Gavar. He had been with them for so long, especially with Ves; she was like a drug to him, as cliched as it sounded, that he feared that he might die from the withdrawal from being away from her.

There was a knock on his door. He looked up, already knowing who it was, and reluctantly said, "Come in."

The door opened and Jacen entered.

The two of them stared at each other wordlessly for quite some time before Jacen said, "If we can't find Ves or your child, Ben... then maybe it's for the best."

Ben couldn't help but chuckle in spite of himself. "Best for Ves, maybe. But I doubt my dad would wanna give up on his grandson that easily."

"Oh, he has no intention of giving up on looking for Ves," Jacen said. "Trust me on that." He allowed a moment of silence to pass before he said, "But as far as I'm concerned, now that you're back, I see no other reason to go after them. Not even for justice; because, right now, wherever Ves is, she's probably hurting as much as you. Me, personally? I think that's punishment enough."

Ben cocked an eyebrow. "Why wouldn't you wanna help save Gavar? You are related to him; he's family, after all."

"I'll let your father handle that by himself," Jacen said.

"He let you give up?" Ben asked in mild surprise.

"He let me off the hook, let's just say," Jacen said. "He said to me, 'Jacen, I don't wanna drag you into this. You've done more than enough for me in helping bring Ben back.' So I said, 'Okay, Uncle Luke. Thank you.'"

"That's it, huh?" Ben asked.

Jacen nodded. "That's it." Another silent beat passed. "Do you need anything?"

"Aside from the obvious?" Ben asked cavalierly.

Jacen sighed. "I didn't think so. Get some rest. Good night."

"Jacen?" Ben asked just as his cousin turned.

"Yes?" Jacen asked as he turned back.

"Thank you."

Jacen gave a trademark Solo grin. "Don't mention it, kid." He left Ben alone then.

As Ben allowed himself to sulk for what felt like forever, he felt like he was on the verge of crying once more.

But that was stopped when he felt an all-too familiar twinge in the Force; it occurred somewhere in his very being.

It was over as quickly as it occurred; but as he hurriedly adopted a meditative pose on his bed to try to find out what it was, he had a feeling that he already knew.

He searched for what it could be, and it was...

Ves. It was Ves. She had reached out to him, however so briefly, through the Force to leave him with three solid words.

_I'm so sorry, Ben._

Then Ben cried as he realized that she was apologizing for more than just leaving him.


	46. Epilogue

Nearly a year before, during the week after Daala and the Lost Tribe of the Sith were defeated, Tahiri had been cremated here on Hapes. It was no coincidence that where she had been burned away was in the exact spot where Jaina's brother, Anakin, had had his funeral held during the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Now Jaina was revisiting the funeral pyre, thinking back on both Anakin and Tahiri's lives, in silence and solitude.

Her solemn reverie was interrupted by the arrival of another person from her left who stopped beside her and turned to the pyre. Jaina looked and was actually surprised to see the Mandalorian known as Partner there.

"Wondering why I'm here, huh?" the Mando asked.

"A little bit, yeah," Jaina responded evenly.

Partner shrugged. "I was just curious."

"Curious?"

"About what she was like; before I met her."

"She was a wonderful person," Jaina said as she looked back on the pyre. "Before the Yuuzhan Vong took her, she was so full of life and joy. Then she became... something else. But my brother, Anakin, that is... he helped her get through it."

"I know about what happened to him," Partner said. "She didn't take it well, I assume."

"That's putting it lightly," Jaina replied with a cocked eyebrow. "We nearly lost her, too. But she came back to us, stronger than ever. Then... Caedus came. She was exposed to the dark side of the Force; he led her down a path where he made her think that she could save Anakin. Once again, she came back; but not without being permanently... tainted."

Silence permeated the space between them for several heartbeats before Partner said, "But not that tainted."

"No," Jaina agreed. "In the end... she did what she did for Jag and me. She may not have been able to save Anakin, but she saved Jag. She saved him... for me, so that I wouldn't know the loss of losing someone that dear to me. Yes, I also lost Anakin, but when she lost him, she endured a pain that I could never understand. Yet, for all the darkness that poisoned her soul, her spirit, her loyalty, remained true to us, her friends. Because we were the closest thing she had to a family."

"Whatever her sins," Partner said, "she could never be fully corrupted. She was bent, but never truly broken."

"Even you see that, huh?" Jaina asked.

"I saw that when I watched her sacrifice herself for your husband."

Jaina nodded. "So... is your curiosity satisfied?"

"Reasonably so," Partner said. "I'll leave you alone now." He turned to leave.

"Wait," Jaina said.

"What?" Partner asked after he stopped and turned back.

"She's happy now, you know," Jaina said.

"How could you know that?"

"My other brother, Jacen, the one who's still alive, he... he took me to a place called beyond shadows. There, he showed me how Tahiri's doing."

"In the afterlife?"

Jaina nodded.

Partner tilted his head. "Okay, I'll bite. How is she happy there?"

Jaina grinned as she thought back to that moment.

She remembered, not long after Tahiri had been cremated, when Jacen took her to the realm beyond shadows. There, she had looked down into a pool and saw Anakin and Tahiri, who was a teenager again, embraced eternally in each other's arms.

"In a way," Jaina said, "that I hope to understand myself one day."

Partner said nothing in response. He only turned and left.

Jaina then turned back as tears of joy began streaking down her face.

"Thank you, Tahiri," she whispered, "for always keeping true to yourself."

**THE END**


End file.
